Foxhound
by Kraken's Ghost
Summary: Discontinued. After his training with Jiraiya is interrupted by an Akatsuki attack, Naruto makes a dangerous gamble with the Kyuubi in order to survive. AU after manga 238.
1. What's that? Bang! Crap! It's all over!

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: Naruto and Kyuubi are forced to make a dangerous gamble when they're forced into a corner. Rating for violence and explicit cursing.

**Chap. 1 – "What's that? BANG! CRAP! It's all over…"**

"You feel it? It's here. Yes! It's here!"

"It seems it's been contained after all. I thought it was just a rumor the lower ranks were spreading. How disturbing that there are humans with that kind of power..."

"Who cares? It's here! It's contained, yes, safe now. We kill it, yes."

"Not yet."

"WHY? Why you deny this? We kill, kill, kill it, yes?"

"Yes, we will kill it. But even contained, I'd never consider the greatest youkai _safe_. The cultists… We'll use them to test its strength."

"Yes, maybe they kill it. I wants to kill it, but if they kill it, it can't be killing us first."

"Coward. But what did I expect? Make a pact and give them the seals. We'll watch and see how it fairs."

"YES! Kill, kill, kill it, yes I will! I go to kill you Kyuubi!"

"Leave already."

"…"

"…Ah…Kyuubi-san…How far you've fallen."

* * *

Uzumaki Naruto collapsed on his back, totally exhausted from the day's practice with his sensei, the Toad Sannin Jiraiya. He'd finally mastered a new explosive jutsu, though the exercises of the day had drained him of almost all his chakra. Now that he'd learned it, they could begin working on something new tomorrow. But for now he was content to just lay here in a weary stupor. Idly he watched his breath make faint vapor clouds in the chilly, spring air.

"Hey, Naruto! Start the fire would ya?" Jiraiya yelled from his spot on his bedroll.

"Yeah, yeah… Old pervert…" Naruto grumbled and dragged himself to his feet to fetch some firewood. A pinecone bounced of the back of his head.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" He snarled.

"I heard that, you ungrateful brat!" Jiraiya yelled.

"It's the truth, ero-sennin!" The blond boy yelled back, sticking his tongue out.

"Stop calling me that!" The perverted hermit in question roared.

It was a good thing they weren't in any city, otherwise they might've been arrested for public misconduct (at least until Jiraiya summoned a giant toad on top of any officers dumb enough to chase him.) As it was, their bickering echoed loudly in the cool night air of the ancient pine forest they'd made camp in, with their noise only reaching the ears of the occasional startled deer. Their camping in the middle of nowhere had to do with the long term trip they were on. For the past year and a half, Jiraiya had been training Naruto nonstop in preparation for his eventual fight with Akatsuki. Akatsuki was an organization that's composed of nine S Class missing-nins and it held some of the most dangerous people on the planet within its ranks. For an unknown reason, they had become interested in Naruto some time back and had already tried once to abduct him. Well, not exactly Naruto. They were actually after the thing trapped inside of him.

Over fourteen years ago, on the day of Naruto's birth, an enormous nine-tailed fox demon attacked the Hidden Village of the Leaf. The monster outclassed the entire shinobi armed forces and was far too powerful to defeat. Their leader at the time, the Yondaime Hokage, sacrificed his life using an extremely powerful jutsu to seal the demon into a newborn child. Naruto was the lucky winner who received the creature and he spent the next twelve years of his life as an outcast in his own village, hated and seen as the demon itself rather than its living prison. Even crueler, he had no idea why the villagers all hated him until the day he stole a forbidden scroll from the Hokage and a traitor ninja told him the true story. He wasn't destined to be alone forever, though, and soon after he became a genin he found people he could call friends.

Over a year and a half ago one of his closest friends, Uchiha Sasuke, betrayed their Hidden Village in a blind pursuit of power. He and Naruto nearly killed each other during his escape, with Sasuke barely emerging the victor. He defected to Konoha's strongest enemy, the Sound Nation, to be trained by the Snake Sannin, Orochimaru. Ever since, Naruto had dedicated himself to becoming stronger not only to defend himself against the Akatsuki, but to able to protect the people important to him from any threat. He didn't want a repeat of what befell Sasuke to happen to any of his other friends. After all, Orochimaru certainly wouldn't be satisfied with only Sasuke when he had the whole Leaf to conquer. And so here he was, on a training trip in the middle of nowhere, with only a perverted hermit with debatable sanity as his company.

Despite being exhausted, Naruto managed to gather up enough firewood to last the night. Grumbling about lazy perverts, he set up the fire pit and summoned what was left of his chakra to ignite the pile of wood he laid into it. In minutes he was relaxing on his back near a cheery campfire, looking at the moon through the massive and shadowy pine trees all around them. The trees seemed like giant sentinels, lording over everything in their domain. His mind began to wander (as it tended to when he was relaxed) and he thought on his friends back home. He was really curious if they'd changed much in the year or so he'd been away.

Naruto had grown, not only in power and skill, but physically as well. He was still short, but at least he was taller than the girls of his class now. His face was leaner and his ribs didn't stick out anymore (though that was less from training and more from Jiraiya insisting he eat something other than ramen as his diet.) To his pleasure, his arms were also longer. Having a greater reach would definitely be an advantage in any fight. All in all, he had the beginnings of a large, lean frame that would be perfect for his wild combat methods. He still had a ways to go though and it seemed like it would be years before he was a respectable size. He hoped his body grew in sooner rather than later. After all, who'd respect a short Hokage? (Sandaime was short, but he'd heard the man was tall when he started as Hokage, so he didn't really think the old guy counted.)

"Hey, are you writing another of those dumb perverted books again?" Naruto asked when he glanced over and saw his sensei sitting cross-legged amongst a pile of scrolls. Jiraiya glanced up at his student and glared at him.

"For your information, no. I'm designing another scenario for you to think about," The white haired man said. Naruto mentally braced himself for the upcoming challenge.

A few weeks after they left Konoha, Jiraiya and Naruto had gotten into one hell of an argument over his training. Naruto was whining about never becoming Hokage when the Toad Hermit finally told him to shut up and listen. He gave him a situation, where Naruto was Hokage and he had a choice between allowing a couple dozen people he'd never met to die or sending one of his friends in to save them, even if it meant his friend's death. Naruto had gotten blustery and demanded to know what the hell that had to do with anything. Jiraiya had coldly replied that's what a Hokage is. A Hokage isn't a prize to be waved around, he'd continued, but a title of trust. The leader of the village has the lives of everyone in his or her hand. Did he really think he deserved such trust, the hermit had asked Naruto.

The blond genin had shut up for days after that. The swing in personality was so extreme that Jiraiya was beginning to worry he'd gone too far and crushed the boy's dream, even if he had spoken the truth. The hermit was even about to apologize when Naruto had demanded more information on the hypothetical situation. Surprised, Jiraiya had made up a bunch of stuff of the top of his head and watch his student screw his whisker-marked face up in thought. Then he grinned and said that he'd save the people in danger himself. Jiraiya had bonked him on the head and they'd continued on their trip, but from then on the Sannin made sure to include mental exercises as well physical in his training. It wasn't that hard for someone as creative as him to come up with new scenarios to play out, but it did mean he had less time to write his dirty books at night.

Oh well, sacrifices must be made if they didn't want Naruto to become a dumb Hokage ten or fifteen years down the line. He just hoped the blonde twerp understood how much he was giving up for him.

During their training, Jiraiya had analyzed Naruto's strengths and weaknesses. At times, he found Naruto capable of extreme cunning to the point of near genius. The downside was these incidents were only in combat and the boy had almost no strategic thought beyond a minute into the future. He was creative though, and the Toad Hermit encouraged him to actively use that talent with the mental exercises he made up. Naruto would probably never be able to outthink somebody in the long term, but with Jiraiya's help he wouldn't need to. If they could get his cunning and tactical thinking up high enough, then he'd at least be able to understand when someone else came up with a better strategic plan and use that to his advantage. If that Nara genius kept exercising his own mind, they'd be a perfect compliment to each as Hokage and Advisor. Well, assuming he ever got Naruto past genin.

Though to be fair, the boy advanced _fast_. It actually kept surprising him how fast Naruto was growing. If the boy was absolutely unable to do something, like strategic thinking, then that part of him changed rather slowly. But if it was something he excelled at, like chakra capacity, then he advanced in leaps and bounds. It was actually kind of weird. The boy advanced in different areas at different rates, but they didn't seem to be slowing down. If he could make his chakra capacity double in a month, then it would be tripled in two months, quadrupled in four and so on. He could pick up certain jutsu in days, when even a genius would take longer (and Naruto was a far cry from a genius.)

The kid just didn't seem to have a limit to what he could learn or how far he could grow. Jiraiya wasn't sure if his mind was playing tricks on him, but in his lifetime he'd only seen that from one other person before. Unfortunately, he still couldn't be certain about the boy's lineage or whether he'd inherited _that_ Bloodline. It would be interesting if it was true, but he'd need to train the boy into at least adulthood to be absolutely sure.

"So what's the game this time, ero-sennin?" Naruto curiously asked.

"Hmm, alright, I think I've got it…" Jiraiya muttered while scratching his chin. He took a blank scroll and spread a good seven feet of it on the ground. Grabbing his brush, the hermit carefully covered the entire surface in seal script. It took several minutes to write it all down, even for a grand master of seals like himself. The hermit looked his work over and nodded before putting the brush away.

"Come over here, I got your exercise set up," Jiraiya said. Naruto staggered to his feet and wobbled around the fire to his sensei. The blonde collapsed in front of his sensei, gearing his weary mind up for the challenge.

The Toad Hermit moved the scroll between them and pressed his hands on it. The script began to glow before floating up from the paper. The chakra formed into a three-dimensional environment the same horizontal dimensions of the scroll it flowed from. As Naruto watched, the image formed into a bird's-eye view of a hilly countryside. The area was the obvious sight of a battle, judging from the craters, bodies, and general debris lying all around. Tiny figures the size of insects began to form into varying types and rank of shinobi. Jiraiya grunted, satisfied with his work and looked up to his student.

"Alright, here's the game plan. Your main force is made up of three squads of jounin, four squads of chuunin, and a couple genin here and there. You also have two medic-nins, three ANBU, and a special jounin with a powerful Bloodline Limit that can alter the density and flow of air. There's also the Hokage, you. You're cut off from supplies and reinforcements. None of the runners you've sent have returned. You don't know the power of the enemy's forces, but you know you're outnumbered two to one at least. You've got a bad feeling they're gonna attack soon. What do you do?" The perverted hermit said.

"What's the mission?" Naruto asked automatically, while staring at the map. He forgot most of his exhaustion when Jiraiya started talking. He'd never admit it to the ero-sennin, but he actually enjoyed these little puzzles, even if they did give him headaches half the time.

"No mission… Well, not an official one, anyways. You need to get out of there alive. Preferably with most of your forces intact and as many of the enemy dead or disabled as possible. You want to limit pursuit or their assassin teams'll pick your people apart before you can escape more than a mile or two," Jiraiya elaborated.

Naruto frowned and puzzled over it. He leaned to and fro, taking in every possible angle of the simulation. Damn, the old pervert _knew_ he sucked at strategy. He was much better at thinking on the fly than this planning crap. Then it hit him. He had the perfect idea and it _wasn't_ the special jounin's Bloodline. Jiraiya obviously threw that in there to make him focus on the Limit and not the real answer for the simulation.

Neither student nor sensei noticed a straw hat falling from a tree fifty feet away.

* * *

Two dark figures moved as flashing blur through the night air. They bounced from tree to tree, barely slowing for an instant. They made almost no sound as they moved. Their dark cloaks and straw hats with hangings obscured most of their features, except for their cold and focused eyes.

The seals the higher-ups had provided worked like a charm, even if it did take awhile for them to find the target without a sample of its blood. No matter. They had found the Kyuubi-vessel and were moving to intercept. It was quite fortunate that it had decided to leave on a training trip with one of the Sannin out into the middle of nowhere. It was risky to attempt an abduction in the middle of the Leaf, but in the backwoods of Fire Country with no one around for miles? It was the best opportunity any of them would have for a long time. There was the issue of the old pervert, but the organization was confident they knew his limits and that the two agents they'd sent could handle him.

There, up ahead. The glow of their cheery little campfire gave them away for miles. How trusting of them. The larger of the two missing-nins halted just before the campsite. His partner stopped amid the branches to his left. They watched the two shinobi as they used some sort of illusion jutsu to simulate a battle.

The man grinned slightly. So the Kyuubi-brat was getting strategy training from the Sannin, huh? The profile on the brat must've been serious when it said he was dedicated to being the next Hokage. It didn't matter now. They'd grab the little shit and the Kyuubi would be back at headquarters by this time tomorrow. The man decided to make his move and dove through the trees. Behind him, his partner allowed her hat to drop, revealing a mechanical eye and an unpleasant smirk. She too followed, mere seconds after her partner.

* * *

"Ha! I got this one ero-sennin! All I gotta do i-"

"Kill your advisors and use the rest of your guys as bait while you escape."

To their credit, despite being caught off guard neither Naruto nor Jiraiya were in the same spot before the man's first syllable ended. By the time the stranger started his second word, both student and sensei were already in fighting stances and ready to defend themselves. Both the man and his partner were more than a little surprised at the speed they moved. Expecting them to be stunned, it was disconcerting to see both the target and his guardian ready to fight at a second or two's notice.

No one said a word for several tense moments. The larger stranger again spoke, to break the silence.

"What? Not gonna demand to know who we are or why we're here?" He asked.

"I know who each of you are and exactly why you're here. I'd been led to believe Akatsuki wasn't coming after Naruto for another year. Seems I was misinformed," Jiraiya's voice was cold enough to make hardened Hunter-nins hesitate. Odd. The man prided himself on his information gathering skills and it wasn't in the profile for him to shrug off a failure in his information network.

"Yep, that would be us spreading some misinformation. You need better spies, Jiraiya-san," The Akatsuki man said. The Sannin across from him said nothing, nor did his face even flicker in response. The stranger was surprised to find it hard to keep eye contact with the white haired man.

"Yeah…We got lucky you're training so far away from anyone…Yeah," The woman (man? It was hard to tell…) spoke for the first time. Again, neither Leaf-nin said anything. Even the abnormally loud blonde remained silent. _That_ definitely didn't fit any profile. The Kyuubi-vessel was just staring at him with icy blue eyes that came close to his sensei's glare.

"Well, I guess introductions are in order," The man said as he pulled his hat off, revealing a bald head that looked like it was carved out of granite. He bore a scratched Hidden Cloud forehead protector and there seemed to be some sort of huge sword strapped to his back. He continued, "My name is Koutetsu Tsurugi and my partner is-"

"Who gives a shit?" Naruto growled and tossed a handful of shuriken at the missing-nin to shut him up. To the criminal's surprise, the steel projectiles moved far faster than a mere genin should be capable of. Even one taught by a Sannin shouldn't be capable of this, he thought as he dodged to the side quickly. There was a split in his cloak where a shuriken had nicked it, even though he evaded the attack at considerable speed.

"I don't give a fuck who you are. Shut up and fight or leave," The blonde demon-vessel growled in a surprisingly canine way. It was unusually intimidating, even coming from a fourteen year old. This was not going the way they'd expected. Both target and guardian were far more prepared than they'd anticipated. No matter, they'd simply adapt. It still annoyed Tsurugi though, that the plan was already experiencing mishaps.

"Fine, I hope your sensei's been preparing you brat," The Akatsuki growled. He rushed at the blonde the same moment Naruto charged him. The two exchanged a quick flurry of blows before Tsurugi leapt back a few paces. The kid was good, but it wasn't enough by far. He began making hand seals and wondered for an instant why the kid wasn't doing the same.

"So it looks like I get to kill you…yeah," Jiraiya's lip curled in disgust at the arrogant smirk on the woman-man-thing's face. He/She wasn't making any real moves towards him, so he was paranoid of some sort of trick. That trick appeared right next to his face an instant later in the form of some sort of clay bird.

The explosion knocked Naruto off balance and he rolled with it rather than fighting to stay upright. Glancing up, he saw a hail of metal passing right where he had been moments ago.

'Looks like his name really is a pun. Steel, huh?'

Another seal and more metal flew towards him. Naruto really couldn't make out what the objects were, but his neck crawled with a danger sense so it was probably a good idea to get the hell out of the way. Gathering what little remained of his chakra, he did a super-jump backwards over twenty feet and landed at the base of a large pine tree. His opponent grinned and whistled at the blonde's little stunt. Naruto wasn't so pleased and had to fight to keep himself from panting hard. That had been it. He was totally out of stamina, except for the little he needed to stay alive. He couldn't even make a single clone with his favorite jutsu, Kage Bunshin. His best skill, the wind technique Rasengan, was totally out of the question. He'd have to somehow beat this guy using only tai-jutsu, which wasn't his strongest area.

"Here it comes brat!" The man yelled and drew his sword. It was as long as that shark-freak's Samehada, but the metal was smooth and dark-gray. Naruto didn't know this, but it looked just like a claymore great sword from another era…albeit, a claymore that was a foot wide. The man pointed it at the blonde, who narrowed his eyes trying to anticipate what the guy was gonna pull next. Was he so fast that he could cover thirty feet with that thing? The man made a few one-handed seals and Naruto got his answer.

"That got you…Yeah. No way you could have lived…Yeah," The androgynous Akatsuki said. The missing-nin's smirk took on a look of confusion when the dust settled. Instead of a dead body or parts of a body, there was a bizarre, white pin-cushion where the Sannin had been standing. As she watched, the spines relaxed and turned into hair, before the whole mess retracted into Jiraiya's normal hairstyle. The man hadn't changed expression through the whole scene, giving the Akatsuki agent the same icy glare as before.

"You're pretty stupid," Was all he said as he rushed him/her. Clay birds and spiders flew every which way, blasting apart the ground and trees surrounding them. It didn't escape the missing-nin's notice that none of them came close enough to do more than singe the hermit's outlandish robes. As he rushed her, Jiraiya was already gathering whirling chakra into his hand, forming a glowing blue-white sphere that vibrated with barely restrained power. He thrust his palm out at the man-woman who quickly tried to-

Ducked out of the way as an enormous sheet of metal erupted form the man's sword and shot across the camp. It passed over Naruto's head, coming close enough to nick a tuft of blonde hair off his scalp and kept going into the tree behind him. Or was that, _trees_? The genin spared a quick glance behind his shoulder to see that not only had the tree right behind him been sliced through and was falling over, but at least five, maybe ten more were all cut through and falling in various directions. He looked back and rolled to the side as another wing of metal impacted the ground where he had been crouched.

'Damn! He's acting pretty gung-ho for someone who wants to capture me. Why the hell is he trying to kill me?' Naruto thought.

The man performed his attacked again. Naruto dodged, but at the last moment was screwed up by the ground shaking to near earthquake levels as all the falling trees finally hit earth one after the other. It didn't screw him up too bad, but even that relatively minor error was more than enough for the attack to land a serious slash along his side. The flesh and muscle ripped deep. A loud, wet splashing made him thing for a one horrible instant that he'd actually been eviscerated, but it was just blood gushing out. Sickened from pain, he dropped to one knee and almost missed the dark, but welcome presence at the back of his mind.

* * *

"**Stupid brat. Why must you always get us into these situations? You'd better appreciate this." **

* * *

Dark red chakra erupted from Naruto's body. The wound at his side stopped bleeding and began to close. Oddly, his features remained unchanged. It seemed as though the Kyuubi had only given him a chakra boost, rather than the higher level body altering. No real matter. If he wasn't exhausted to begin with, he wouldn't have been stuck on the defensive the whole time. Naruto's opponent was already sending another blade at him, only now it was moving slower to the genin's eyes. With a chakra powered jump, the boy leapt up, ran across the top of the blade, and hit the ground running on the other side. In an instant, he was on top of his enemy. Though the missing-nin was now forced into close range combat, he actually seemed pleased for some reason.

'Ha! 'Bout time brat. I expected you to use it sooner, bu-'

The man's thoughts broke off as he watched Naruto form a Rasengan with one hand. It was twice as large as a normal Rasengan and was the same dark red as the swirling aura covering the boy's body. Tsurugi cursed, knowing there was hardly anyone on the planet, even in Akatsuki, who could survive a direct blow from that thing. He ran his palm along his own blade and began gathering chakra into the pooling blood. Naruto rushed him, his blue eyes seeming to glow with demonic fury. Tsurugi brought his blade to bear as an impromptu shield against the boy's jutsu, even as the chakra in his free hand molded into a dark sigil of some sort.

The Dark Rasengan slammed into the carbon-steel of the sword, immediately drilling into it. The massive blade held for an instant, then it was torn apart with a hideous metallic shrieking noise. The pieces were flung in all directions as semi-molten globs. It didn't matter to Tsurugi. The sword had done its job of interrupting the vessel's attack long enough for the missing-nin to counter. As the man swept his hand in to attack the blonde's abdomen, he was vaguely disturbed that the kid's jutsu had barely lost any form, even after shredding forty-five pounds of high-grade carbon-steel. No matter. This fight was over.

Tsurugi's hand slammed into Naruto abdomen, directly over the seal on his stomach that kept the Kyuubi imprisoned. The sigil burned right through his orange jacket and bonded with his flesh directly on top of the Yondaime's seal. Stunned, Naruto jumped back from his opponent. He was surprised to note the man do the same. Tsurugi stood there, not at all concerned about the loss of his sword. In fact, he seemed rather smug that he landed that one blow.

'What the hell is this guy waiting for?' the genin wondered.

A sudden jolt in his stomach caused Naruto to look down at the wicked looking mark on his abdomen. A queasy lurching feeling rippled through his guts.

"What the-"

* * *

"**What's that? That feeling… That sigil… It looks familiar…No! A demon seal! But how? Damnation! Boy! Boy, listen to me! Let out all of my chakra! Burn it all off now! You have to do it _now_! Boy! Do you hear me? We're dead if you don't get rid of it!" **

* * *

Naruto wasn't able to hear the demon fox's bellows over the strange roaring in his head that grew moment by moment. His body felt strange. It felt like he was being tickled, yet also like he had to puke at the same time. His limbs became heavier and he dropped to one knee without realizing it. Spasms and jerks wormed their way through the muscles all throughout his body. They were becoming more intense as the seconds past.

"Wha-" Naruto's voice clogged up. Dammit, he couldn't even talk! What the hell did that guy do to him?

"Heh, lemme guess. You're wondering what that thing was, right?" Tsurugi asked, his arms crossed over his chest and wearing a smug expression. Naruto could only glare as his jaw began clenching tighter and tighter against his will. "No worries, brat. You'll find out soon enough."

The spasms were growing. They were starting to hurt. They were starting to hurt a LOT. Confused and unable to move, Naruto could only kneel helplessly as his arms and legs began twitching violently. Even his neck was jerking a bit. Damn, if only the fox could help him. Obviously it couldn't or he wouldn't be sitting here like this in the dirt.

The spasms stopped. Before Naruto could feel relief, fire seemed to spread through his veins. It felt like someone had mixed vinegar and baking soda inside his body (one of the few science facts Naruto knew, which he'd learned for its messy prank potential.) Right now, it felt like his blood was foaming and bubbling and trying to boil its way right out his skin. The pressure in his veins was growing. His muscles were swelling like overfilled balloons all over his body. It was growing too much. His body couldn't take it. What the hell was happening to him!

"Heh, any minute now, brat, any minute and you-"

With a wet, ripping sound the larger muscles in Naruto's arms, his upper legs, his torso, and his back exploded as fiery, chaotic chakra tore its way out of his body. Blood splattered everywhere on the ground as the energy flew outwards. The greenish-gray chakra ripped up the ground all around him as it twisted and coiled on itself. The boy felt a single moment of horrifying agony and then he was down, still as death. The Akatsuki stared at the target, dumbstruck at the sight. The chakra continued to flow from the boy in torrents for several moments before it died down. A pool of blood started to spread under the brat. The missing-nin couldn't believe that the seal had done _this_ to the vessel. He was about to go and see if he could keep the target alive when the earth shuddered underneath him.

The bizarre chakra had caught both Jiraiya and his opponent off guard. The Sannin had taken one look at Naruto's body and lost his temper.

"You two just made a huge mistake," The hermit growled at the woman-thing, who couldn't muster up the usual smirk do to the target's state. Jiraiya merely bit his thumb and smeared it on his hand before slamming it into the ground. "Kuchiyose no jutsu! (Summoning Skill)"

The androgynous Akatsuki only had a chance to see an enormous cloud of ninja smoke, before a gigantic webbed foot flew out of it and landed on her. Jiraiya ignored the sickening crunch as Gamabunta landed directly on top of his opponent. As far as he was concerned, that was simply one down, one to go. He turned and gave the male attacker a look of unrestrained fury.

"Shit!" Tsurugi snarled as he jumped back to the tree line. This was _not_ how the mission was supposed to go. They let their egos get in the way when they made the deal for the seals and blindly assumed that their 'benefactors' were actually helping them. The missing-nin looked from the bloodied boy to the Sannin and his toad. He had to suppress a shudder at the look of raw fury in the hermit's eyes. Even on his best day, Tsurugi would have a hard time beating any of the Three Legendaries (assuming he even could.) Gamabunta rarely listened to Jiraiya, but when they _did_ work together they were nigh unbeatable except by Orochimaru and his snake or possibly Itachi-san.

'Hmm, I shouldn't fight. Besides, we can't risk the target's life any further I guess we'll have to-' Tsurugi noticed for the first time that his partner was absent. His eyes traced past Jiraiya and noticed part of an Akatsuki cloak sticking out from underneath Gamabunta's foot. Even as he caught sight of it, the toad lifted his paw up and wiped what was left of the missing-nin off on a couple trees nearby, muttering about stepping in something nasty.

Time to retreat.

Jiraiya watched the man chuck a hasty smoke bomb and run before it had even exploded. He waited till the man's panicked chakra faded into the distance, before diving towards his student.

"Naruto? Naruto, are you- Oh, Kami-sama…" The Sannin trailed off, feeling a cold, sick spot growing in his stomach. The boy was shredded. He looked like somebody had gone gung-ho with a blender all over his body. He was lying in a pool of his own blood that was still growing. His blond hair looked neon compared to his ashy-blue skin.

'He's dead,' Jiraiya thought. He couldn't help but stare for a moment longer, until Gamabunta's voice jolted him out of his stupor.

"**JIRAIYA! Why did you summon me! We're in the middle of nowhere and I stepped in something nasty. What's going on?"** The toad bellowed, taking a drag off his enormous pipe.

Jiraiya didn't answer immediately. Instead he was praying to every god and deity in existence as he leaned his face over Naruto's mouth. A moment later and he was thanking them all as he felt the faintest breath against the whiskers on his face. Thank the Kami he hadn't been able to shave for the past few days. The hermit ripped off one of the sashes on his outfit and tore it into hunks. He was going to give Tsunade a huge kiss and a giant tub of sake when he got back to thank her for all those times when they were young and she'd insisted that she teach at least him basic first aid. He was never going to tease her about her medical skills again.

"**Who's that you got there, Jiraiya? They look pretty mangled,"** Gamabunta said as he leaned his huge, scarred face down to look at what appeared to be a pile of raw meat with blond hair on top of it. Jiraiya took the chunks of cloth and formed tourniquets at the top of Naruto's arms and legs. If he lived, hopefully the fox could repair any damage to his limbs. It wasn't like they were getting much circulation anyways, the hermit grimly noted. When he caught up to the man that did this to his student…

"It's Naruto," The Sannin distantly said as he ripped open the boy's shredded jacket. He cursed and fought the urge to lose his dinner. The boy's muscles were destroyed. There was no other word for the scale of damage done to his body (though 'shredded', 'pureed', 'torn to ribbons from the inside out', all came to his mind.) There was a huge breeze as Gamabunta reacted to the sight of his youngest summoner with a sharp intake of breath.

"**Kami, Jiraiya… Is he going to survive?"** The Boss Toad asked, an unusual note of worry in his deep, bellowing voice.

"I have no idea," The hermit answered as he shoved a blood stopping pill or three into the boy's mouth. Seeing the bleeding slow down to a dripping pace rather than a steady flow, he reached into his pouch for a soldier pill. He was just about to force that into the boy's mouth when his eyes glanced down at the mark covering Naruto's abdomen. He jerked the pill away like his hand had been burned.

"**What is it?"** Gamabunta asked.

"I don't know. There's some sort of seal messing up the Yondaime's. Something's screwing his chakra up," He would have to hold off giving the boy any chakra supplements until he had the Godaime check him out.

"Boss Toad, I need to get the boy back to Konoha! Only Tsunade can help him!" Jiraiya yelled as he took off his outer robes and wrapped them firmly around Naruto. He lifted the boy into his arms and leapt atop the giant frog. The boy seemed much lighter than usual.

"**Alright, but I'm only doing this for the kid. Hang on!"** Gamabunta roared as he jumped over a quarter a mile in the Hidden Leaf's general direction. Jiraiya channeled his chakra into his feet to stick to the toad's skin. Carefully, he swayed and moved in time with the toad's leaps, knowing sudden movements would only worsen his student's condition. It couldn't be helped though. Speed was more important than being careful.

Jiraiya could only pray that Tsunade could save the boy. He couldn't handle losing another student before their life even started.

* * *

Unseen to any of them, the dark cloaked figure of Tsurugi had doubled back to the camp ground in time to see the massive outline of the toad disappearing over the starlit horizon.

"Shit, this plan is totally screwed," The large man grumbled as he walked over to the bloody ground where the target had lain. He withdrew a kunai and wiped the flat of the blade along the stained dirt. Standing up again, he wrapped the blade in a cloth before tucking it away.

Without another moment's hesitation, the man jumped into the trees and raced along, following the toad's general route. It wasn't exactly hard to track them with the earthquakes Gamabunta was making. He'd get a general idea of where they were going before reporting in. Not once did he glance to his partner's final resting spot on the side of several pine trees. There's no love lost between Akatsuki agents.

'Hopefully the higher ups will come up with a better plan next time,' Tsurugi grimly thought as he raced through the dark.

* * *

Dawn was just breaking over the peaceful Hidden Village of Leaf. The early pink and gray light made a beautiful contrast when seen through the many trees that grew throughout the village. The sun's earliest rays were just creeping across the Hokage Monument, where five faces carved into the cliff-side stared out over the Leaf. Many residents who were up at this time often took a moment to just stare at the beauty of their home.

Yamanaka Ino was not one of those people.

Ino hadn't changed much since Sasuke's defection. She was a bit taller now and she had more meat on her. She had allowed her blonde hair to grow long again, though not to impress anyone this time. She still wore her purple combat dress and bandages. Her face was a little sharper, as some of her baby fat had faded away. She was also becoming _healthy_ in certain areas as well. She was on her way to becoming a very voluptuous woman. That fact mattered little to her though, as there was nobody in the village that she wanted staring at her curves.

The blonde girl slowly stumbled down the stairs of her home into the back room of the first floor flower shop. She didn't have any missions with Asuma-sensei today, so her parents had told her to open the shop this morning. Ino _hated_ getting up early. Her mood was made worse since she hadn't slept very well last night. She kept smelling blood in her dream and felt like her legs were off balance the whole time. It had been pretty weird.

Yawning, the genin grabbed a watering can and stuck it in one of the large tubs in the back of the shop. As she watched the water slowly fill up the can, the pretty blonde wondered at her dream. She rarely dreamt much and when she did it was almost always something bad. Her family's main jutsu worked on the principle of invading someone else's mind. She had often wondered if her family sometimes had premonitions as a side effect of opening up the mind like that. She always thought to ask her father about it whenever she had the odd dreams, but she also seemed to forget every time before she could talk to him about it.

'Maybe I'll remember today,' Ino thought, too tired to actually speak out loud. She reached over to turn the faucet off and lug the full can out of the tub. A sudden tremor stopped her. She blinked, looked around, and shrugged before reaching for the can again. A greater tremor stopped her hand again. The genin stared as yet another vibration rippled past. This one was great enough to actually form ripples across the water in the can. Slowly, she walked over to the back door and looked out the small window in it. A rumble strong enough to rattle the glass shook the shop. With some apprehension, the blonde reached out and opened the door to look outside.

Her jaw dropped. That was a BIG frog.

The massive red toad had just hopped over the outer walls and was looking for a clear spot to jump to deeper in the village. Even as Ino watched, it seemed to find one and took a massive leap into the air. Ino watched at it landed about half a mile away from her home. The rumble felt like an earthquake and her legs wobbled under her as she grabbed the door frame to keep her balance. A flash of deja-vu hit her. This was the weird feeling she had in her dreams all last night. Then where was the smell of blood?

Too late, Ino realized that not only had the tremors stopped, but the toad was in mid-flight again. The massive frog hit the ground two streets from her house. The ground seemed to turn to jelly as she was knocked onto her butt. Rubbing her shapely posterior, the blonde stared up at the frog in awe. She had been unconscious during the Sound invasion and hadn't seen any of the snake summons that had attacked their city, so it was a definite first for her as she watched the giant toad.

There seemed to be an odd looking man riding on top of it. His white haired flashed in the morning sunlight and Ino could just barely make out the odd red lines on his face. He was holding a bundle of cloth that was covered in blotchy red marks. A spiky mess of yellow and red…Straw? No…Hair. Yellow and red hair stuck out of the bundle. Something about the man and his cargo seemed familiar to Ino. Why did giant toads, a white haired man, and spiky blonde hair ring such a loud bell in her head?

All in an instant it hit her. Flashes and snippets of conversation between her and her friend/rival Haruno Sakura floated past her. Learning that each genin of Team 7 was being taught by a Sannin. Hearing from Sakura that her teammate Naruto had left with the Toad Hermit Jiraiya on a training mission. Feeling jealously that the blond idiot had such a powerful sensei, while her own spend more time playing games with her lazy teammate, Shikamaru. Naruto's grinning face as he kicked the crap out of Kiba and, later on, Neji. His blonde, spiky hair shining in the bright light. Spiky…Blonde…

Naruto.

With a sudden queasy feeling, Ino realized who was in that bundle and just what those red stains were. The whole time it had taken her to come to that conclusion had only been a couple seconds. Gamabunta (she now recognized the pipe and sword from the history books at the academy) was just starting his next jump. Without really thinking, Ino was jumping up and running in the direction of the hospital, knowing that was the toad's destination. She didn't even pause to close the door behind her. She looked up as the massive toad leapt over her head and further into the village. She wasn't even sure why she was doing this, but that didn't slow her run in the least. One of the Rookie 9 was in trouble and she was going to make sure he was alright.

At least, she was pretty sure that was the reason.

* * *

The Fifth Hokage, the Slug Hermit Tsunade, would have agreed with Ino that mornings were evil incarnate. She had managed to get totally drunk last night and, as Shizune had warned her, she was now paying for it. She slouched at the desk of her office and glared at the paperwork that refused to go away. It was morning, she had a hangover, and now she had a treaty with a minor feudal lord to negotiate on top of it all. What else could go wrong?

"Hokage-sama!" An ANBU yelled as he burst through the door.

Tsunade's eye twitched as the noise reverberated in her skull.

"Yes?" She managed to hiss out between gritted teeth. The ANBU ignored the tone that had made stronger men than him flinch away in terror.

"Hokage-sama, Jiraiya-sama has returned."

"So soon?" Tsunade asked, some apprehension growing in her voice. Her old teammate had said he wasn't going to return for another year or so. If he was back now…

"He came in riding on Gamabunta-sama just five minutes ago. He told me to get you. Hokage-sama…His student is wounded," The ANBU finished carefully, knowing the Godaime's relationship with the Uzumaki brat.

"What!" Tsunade tried to yell, but it came out as more of a strangled gasp. Her hangover was forgotten in a rush of adrenaline. "How badly?"

"Hokage-sama…He's critical. Jiraiya had to restart his heart once on the way back to the village. Shizune-san is trying to treat him now, but sh-," The ANBU was cut off as Tsunade left. She didn't leave through the door though. The Hokage had turned and simply smashed through the window as she leapt to the streets below. The ANBU rushed to the empty window, along with the guards who had came in at the loud crashing noise. One of them let out an impressed whistle as they watched their leader blur across the rooftops to the hospital.

"Damn…I'm never getting between her and that kid. _Ever_," The man said in awe.

The other two ANBU could only nod in reply.

* * *

Shizune worked desperately to save her young friend's life. She had cut away his clothes to see the injuries underneath. Naruto's gaudy orange outfit now lay in a pile of red strips next to her. Behind her, Jiraiya hovered well out of the way, but ready to assist if he could. He was present mostly to see if there was anything he could do about that seal on the boy. As long as it was on him, the fox wouldn't be able to heal Naruto. The hermit had figured that out on the way back when he realized his student wasn't healing right. The genin had given him a terrible scare when his breathing had suddenly stopped ten miles out from the village. Performing CPR on his student while on top of a gigantic, anxious toad was not a pleasant memory to the man.

It did seem like the fox _was_ able to at least slow the boy's bleeding and to force him to produce more blood. Naruto had lost more blood than there was in the bodies of two full grown men over the course of the trip. Jiraiya was covered in it up and down his front and Gamabunta's forehead had been a darker stain of red before he'd disappeared. The Toad Hermit only hoped Tsunade had totally gotten over her blood fear. He was worried about developing a phobia to the stuff himself.

He'd watched as Shizune gently laid the boy out in the center of the large room. They were in the largest healing room in the building. The room itself was fifty by fifty feet in size and the entire floor was covered in extremely complex seals and rune script. It was probably the largest and most complicated set of seals Jiraiya had ever seen. Naruto lay in the center of it all. His deathly pale face contrasted sharply with the seals lying all around him. Shizune was trying her strongest healing jutsu on the boy's chest, trying to repair his most vital areas. Jiraiya worried that the seal might interfere even with that, but he didn't have the power alone to break the damn thing. He'd have to let Shizune do her best to heal the boy until Tsu-

The doors of the room burst open with enough force to drive them into the walls where the hinges had swung them.

'Speak of the devil,' Jiraiya thought in relief. For the first time in hours, he felt that Naruto might actually have a chance at survival.

Tsunade hadn't even paused as she rushed into the room, several medic-nins trailing behind her. Shizune's back was to her and she couldn't truly see Naruto from this angle. She crossed over and walked around her student, ignoring Jiraiya's warning. She dropped her medical bag (which she had swiped from a passing nurse earlier.)

Naruto was…shredded. His whole body had rips and tears along it, like some wild animal had done its best to make him into ground meat. She could even see bone exposed in some places. And the blood…

The beginnings of the old fear began to well up in the Sannin. In her mind's eye she saw Nawaki and Dan's faces floating past her in a sea of red. Now Naruto's face was joining them. Another of her loved ones dying…

Shizune's frustrated tears snapped her out of it. Tsunade shook her head a bit and looked to her student's progress. It wasn't much. No matter how hard she was trying, her apprentice couldn't get Naruto's flesh to mend for more than a second before it reopened. The Godaime kneeled down and, needing her considerable strength, pulled Shizune's hands away from the boy. The young medic-nin gasped at the sight of her mentor, not even noticing her loud entrance in her concentration.

"I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama! Nothing I do is working! Something seems to be blocking any jutsu I try," The dark haired woman said, almost hysterical at the lack of progress. Now that Shizune was leaning back, the Hokage could actually see the extent of Naruto's injuries. A chill ran through her as she realized the boy should've been dead minutes after he was wounded. Something seemed to be forcing his blood production into overdrive to keep up with the constant loss.

"Must be Kyuubi…" Tsunade muttered, channeling chakra into her hands and using a diagnostic jutsu. Sweeping her hands across the boy's body, she realized why Shizune was so damn upset. Something was blocking her jutsu and disrupting the chakra as it entered Naruto's body. Her eyes drifted past the red-black wound on his chest and to his surprisingly uninjured abdomen. She wasn't exactly sure what she was seeing, but she knew that the Kyuubi's seal shouldn't look like that. There was a glowing red seal surrounding it and worming its way through the original like a parasitic worm. The chakra in her hand disrupted further the lower she moved her hand until her entire jutsu dispelled as she passed over the seal.

Tsunade stared at it in shock. If that thing disrupted chakra so badly that it messed up jutsu for _other_ people, what the hell was it doing to Naruto's body on the inside? She made a couple quick conclusions as she stared at the script.

"Somebody get Jiraiya!" She bellowed to the medic-nins that were staring at the boy.

"I'm right here, Tsunade-hime, no need to yell," The hermit grumbled as he stepped forward.

"Why the hell did you leave this thing on him?" The Sannin yelled.

"Because I wanted you to look him over first before I tried anything. You're the medic, not me," Jiraiya replied with a calm he didn't feel.

"Then get your bleeding ass over here and help me break this seal!" The Hokage roared at the top of her lungs. Everyone in the room jumped, except the person she was yelling at. Her old teammate walked up and bit his thumb, while pulling a small brush from his pocket. Tsunade grabbed a sponge from her bag and began to clean away the blood on Naruto's abdomen.

"Did you try blood stopping pills?" She asked Shizune in a terse voice (though far gentler than the one she used with Jiraiya.) Her apprentice shook her head.

"No. Jiraiya-sama said he's already given him six on the way here. I didn't want to risk blood clots since he's not healing right. If one should lodge in his brain…" Shizune trailed off, not needed to finish her statement. She scooted back so Jiraiya had enough room to start making seals surrounding the sigil on the boy's stomach. Tsunade gave a worried glance to her old teammate.

"_Six_?" She asked in disbelief. The Toad Hermit only nodded shortly.

The Godaime shook her head and said to Shizune, "Get some sutures, clamps, and any sort of advanced healing solution you can find. We need to stop the bleeding as soon as possible."

Her apprentice nodded and rushed out of the room.

"You know…To break this thing, it's gonna drain all of our chakra. You won't have enough energy left for healing jutsu afterwards," Jiraiya commented casually as he wrote.

"I know, but that thing is screwing up his inner coils somehow and keeping the fox from healing him. I think it caused the Kyuubi's chakra and Naruto's own to react violently to each other. If we can't use jutsu, then we'll stitch him up manually until the fox can heal him," Tsunade said. She used a scalpel to make a cut in her own finger and began to ink out seals of her own onto the boy.

Jiraiya nodded. His old teammate's analysis of the seal just supported his own conclusions. Orochimaru would be salivating if he knew these things existed. Shrugging off thoughts of his old rival, the Sannin bent down and continued his work.

* * *

Ino carefully stepped over the broken glass of the Konoha General's automatic doors. It looked like a rampaging bull had busted in here just a couple minutes ahead of her. The hospital lobby hadn't changed much since the last time she had been here, except for the breezy new entrance. A couple janitors passed by her as she walked up to the receptionist. Their faces looked horrified at the destruction. Another set of doors lay on the ground further past the information desk. From her previous visits, Ino knew the hall behind those doors led into the advanced healing rooms. She had been there once before when Chouji had been heavily injured during Sasuke's defection. From what she could see, the destruction continued down there with harried medic-nins and nurses running all over the place. She sighed as she stepped up to the receptionist.

You could always tell when Naruto was in town…

Ino spent a couple minutes futilely trying to get the woman's attention. Since the receptionist was currently arguing with several visitors over the safety standards of the hospital, it was probably going to be awhile. The blonde genin gave up and walked past the desk to where several people were only now picking up the demolished doors to the inner hallways. Inching her way past the workers and panicked doctors running amuck, Ino made her way down the hall at a much slower pace than her panicked run to get here.

It had taken her a good fifteen minutes or so to reach the hospital. The toad had been long gone by the time she got there, though it left several enormous footprints in front of the medical building. As she meandered through the hallways (occasionally pressing herself against the wall to dodge medics rushing back and forth) she found that following the trail of chaos was much easier than actually trying to remember where the treatment rooms were. Maybe Jiraiya-sama had been a little panicked on his way in? It didn't take long for her to find the ward she suspected Naruto was in, but she was stopped at an ANBU checkpoint at the beginning of the wing by a couple guards.

"Sorry, but no one under Jounin rank is allowed through here," One of them said.

Glaring at the man's bird mask, Ino demanded, "Why not! It's not like the Hokage is here or anything!"

Both ANBU sweat-dropped. It was hard to believe there was _anyone_ in Konoha who didn't recognize Tsunade's signature destruction. Then again, this girl just might be lucky. Both the guards felt a bit of envy at the thought of being ignorant to the Godaime's temper.

"Actually, Hokage-sama is back there right now. She's treating Jiraiya-sama's student, the Uzumaki boy," The other ANBU (who wore an elephant mask) replied.

"Uzumaki…? Oh, you mean Naruto!" Ino exclaimed, not really that familiar with Naruto's surname as it wasn't part of any well known clan. "He's really here then? I have to see him! We took the chuunin exams together a couple years ago."

The ANBU in the bird mask shook his head.

"Like I said, we can't let anyone back."

"But…Please! He's a friend of mine! I just want to see if he's alright!" Ino pleaded. She was fibbing a little on the friend part. Not that she and Naruto were enemies or anything, though she was still a little sore that his encouragement had helped Sakura fight her to a draw in the exams and kept her from going to the finals. He was still a comrade, even if he wasn't a close one. The Rookie 9 from that year and Team Gai tended to watch out for each other, even if it was at a distance. Even the colder types like Neji and Shino would back up one of their own, even if they didn't act like they were concerned. Ino was no different. She had to at least make sure their comrade was going to be okay.

"Look, we really are sorry," The elephant mask began, "But we can't just let anyone come wandering back. The kid is busted up really bad and the Hokage needs to work uninterrupted. We're not even allowed to let lower ranked medic-nins back."

Ino felt her hopes drop. Dammit, the man had a point. But now she was even more worried. Was Naruto really injured so badly that the best medic on the continent had to work totally undisturbed?

"Can you at least check and see how he's doing?" The blonde girl asked.

"We can't leave our posts," The bird mask replied, a hint of sympathy coming into his voice. ANBU knew more than anyone else what it was like to have severely injured comrades. Their missions were the deadliest, after all.

"Ahhh! Isn't there anyway I can get back there!" Ino yelled in frustration.

"Well…" Elephant started, scratching the chin of his mask in thought. "If you had someone of sufficient rank accompany you… maybe…"

"Do I count?" A deep, lazy voice asked.

Ino whirled around as both ANBU stood up even straighter.

"Kakashi-san!" The guards said in a stereo effect.

Ino narrowed her eyes at the tall man in front of her. Yes… She remembered him. He was at the chuunin preliminaries. He'd been one of the jounin-sensei that stopped Neji from killing Hinata. Later he'd held Naruto back from chasing after Lee when the genin was wounded by that Sand-freak. She also remembered him at the finals, when he and Sasuke had arrived late. Taking in the masked man's lean and muscular form, she wondered if he was here to see Naruto too.

Hatake Kakashi observed the three ninjas in front of him with his single visible eye. He'd been at the memorial, staring at Obito-san's name, when he felt the ever increasing earthquakes. He'd recognized Gamabunta immediately, having seen his sensei, the Yondaime, summon him on multiple occasions. The silver-haired man had watched the giant frog cross the village until it stopped at the medical complex. Moments later, it had dispelled in a cloud of smoke.

Kakashi wasn't called a genius for nothing and reading 'underneath the underneath' he'd come to the conclusion that either Jiraiya or Naruto was severely injured for the Boss Toad to come riding in to town in such a fashion. Knowing the mysterious Akatsuki organization was after Naruto, he'd concluded that it was far more likely his former subordinate needed medical attention, than the infamous Jiraiya. Wanting to check up on him and to see his student after so long, the jounin had headed off at a good clip to the hospital. On the way, he'd been easily passed by a frantic looking Tsunade. That caused made him more worried than anything else.

"So…" The copy-ninja drawled, his semi-fake lazy attitude showing. "Gonna let us through?"

"Of course, Kakashi-san," The bird mask replied. "Will you be taking the girl with you?"

Kakashi gave Ino a glance. It was pretty odd that the Yamanaka girl was here. Last he knew, she hadn't spoken more than a couple sentences to Naruto the entire time he'd lived in Konoha. If it was Sasuke, he'd understand, but Naruto? Oh well… If she wanted to tag along, that was fine by him. Besides, it looked like she might resort to using volume as the weapon of chose and _every_ member of Team 10 turned pale at the thought of Ino's vicious tongue. Asuma-san told horror stories of his student's antics.

"Sure," The jounin said, in an easy going way. "Why not? I'm sure Naruto'll appreciate visitors."

The ANBU nodded and moved aside to let them through. They immediately jumped back into position to block a harried looking chuunin who was carrying a message to the Hokage from the Fire Council about property damage costs.

The genin and jounin walked along the hall in silence for a minute or so before Ino turned to Kakashi.

"Thanks. They wouldn't even tell me how he was doing," The blonde said.

Kakashi looked down at her and gave her his trademark half-circle eye smiles.

"No problem," He said, with a nearly visible heart floating above his head. "I'm worried about the goofball too."

Ino gave him a grateful smile. The two walked the rest of the way in companionable silence. It wasn't very hard to spot the room Naruto was in. There was a large hole in the wall where two double doors used to be. Ino wondered a moment at all the demolished doors she'd seen today before she stepped up to the doorway.

She wasn't exactly sure what she was seeing at first. It was a large room, with seals covering the entire floor. That much she got. It was the strange object lying in the center of the room that she didn't quite grasp. It looked like a pile of shredded meat. What confused her was the blonde straw at the end of it. It looked like someone had shaped some raw beef into a vaguely human form and put a blonde wig on top of it.

Blonde…

Ino must have made some sort of sound, but she wasn't aware of it. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the mea- …the _person_ on the floor. She wasn't aware of the other people in the room… Only the person lying there. A dead person. There was no way anyone could look like that and be alive, not even a shinobi. The scent of blood filled her nostrils.

Ino barely felt it when long arms wrapped themselves around her mouth and waist and pulled her from the doorway. She didn't know it, but Kakashi was doing the same thing to her that he had done to his blonde student at the chuunin preliminaries when Lee was hurt. The genin wasn't aware of the jounin leading her to the bench built into the wall beside the room and gently forcing her to sit on it. It was only when he snapped his fingers in front of her eyes that she finally focused on him.

"Ino-san? You all there?" He quietly asked. She idly noted that he had to squat to be anywhere near eye level with her sitting.

"Naruto… That was Naruto…" She choked out. The silver-haired man nodded.

"I'm going to go help them, Ino-san. Both Jiraiya-sama and the Hokage are running low on chakra and they might need someone to fill in. Are you going to be alright here?" Kakashi asked. It wasn't very fair to leave the girl alone, but at the same time he needed to help his former student. The two Sannin in the room were burning through most of their chakra trying to break some sort of seal on the boy and they would probably need another person with high chakra levels to assist them. And as cold as it sounded, Ino was ninja. She'd have to learn how to deal with the gruesome side of being a shinobi sooner or later. If she couldn't take seeing a comrade mangled in a hospital, then she'd probably wind up making a fatal mistake on a mission if she saw the same thing in the field.

_**Those who don't care about their comrades are worse then trash.**_

'Hai, Obito-san. I know I'm being hypocritical, but I can't watch her until I'm sure I'm not needed to help Naruto,' Kakashi thought as memories of his best friend floated through his mind.

"Help…? Yeah… Yeah. Yes! Go! Go help him!" Ino said, snapping out of her stupor long enough to shove the copy-nin's shoulder towards the door. She barely made the tall man wobble even in an off balanced squat, but her message got through. Kakashi gave her one last eye smile before he hurried through the doors.

'Tough girl,' He thought as he caught Shizune's eye.

Ino stared after the copy-nin for a few seconds.

'Don't worry,' She told herself. 'Naruto has two Sannin, a medic team, and the Copy-Ninja looking after him. He'll be alright.'

Naruto…

Naruto was a pile of ground up meat lying on the cold floor looking like he was on a butcher's block.

The thought hadn't yet fully sunk in before Ino was rushing to the restroom just around the corner. Her last coherent thought before she emptied her stomach in one of the stalls was that she would probably never be able to watch Chouji devour steaks again.

* * *

It had been almost ten minutes and the damn seal still wasn't breaking, even with two Sannin channeling their chakra into the blasted thing. Jiraiya had no idea what that sigil was or who created it, but he was cursing its existence with every fiber of his soul. Both he and Tsunade had chakra swirling around them, making a windy roar in the room, and were channeling the energy into the string of seals that led up to the genin. At least Shizune was able to get in there and start suturing the worst of the boy's injuries together. The bleeding had noticeably slowed, at least in the chest area, but if that seal wouldn't break the fox would never be able to heal his student.

'And if the demon can't do its thing, Naruto will die,' The Sannin thought grimly. If they only had someone with high chakra… Shizune was skilled, but like most medics she had far more control than reserves when it came to chakra. None of the medics in the building had the kind of power needed. They didn't need a Kage level shinobi, but a very strong individual was still required nonetheless. Not for the first, nor the last time, Jiraiya lamented the Yondaime's death. This seal would be child's play if they had his power backing them.

'If only Arashi-kun was alive… Or even-'

Hatake Kakashi walked in the doorway. His visible eye had an unusual tenseness to it as he looked at his former student. Without a word, he pulled his forehead protector up, exposing his Sharingan enhanced left eye, and walked towards Shizune to see what he could do.

At that moment, Jiraiya felt like yanking the jounin's mask down and kissing him till his mismatched eyes crossed.

"Kakashi-kun!" The Toad Hermit yelled over the noise of the chakra, "We could use a hand if you got one!"

"Where do you need me?" The Copy-Ninja replied.

"Grab a brush and start inking a line of seals with your blood out from Naruto's chest!" Tsunade ordered, sweat running down her eyes from the strain she was under.

Kakashi took a few moments to eye the setup with his Sharingan. He was standing just in front of Shizune, which was towards the entrance of the room. To his left, Jiraiya was crouching at the edge of the room, his hands planted on the floor. A thin line of glowing seals made their way across the floor and its permanent black seals, to Naruto where they circled the red sigil that intertwined with the Kyuubi seal. To his right, another line of seals led to Tsunade, who was mirroring her fellow Sannin. Kakashi closed his normal eye and focused on the chakra radiating from the script.

The seal set was advanced, but linear. Both Jiraiya and Tsunade were using the same seals, even if they were at different positions to the boy. If they were using the same seals, then he could make an identical set and join right in. Kakashi was no seal expert, especially compared to a Sannin, but he had enough skill to use these without risking further harm to the boy.

"Got it," The jounin said as his Sharingan finished recording the seal order. He reached into Shizune's open medical bag lying beside her and pilfered one of her thin brushes. He carefully stepped past the woman and knelt across Naruto from her. He nicked his finger with a kunai and began to carefully ink out seals on the boy's stomach.

Shizune didn't even notice him as she carefully finished closing off a severed vein in the genin's upper shoulder.

It took several tense minutes to ink out the entire line of seals. Finally, Kakashi discarded the brush and gathered chakra into his hands before slamming the palms onto the marks he'd just made. The kanji glowed blue leading up the boy and the energy joined the Sannins' in combating the dark sigil.

At first the fresh chakra didn't seem to do anything, but after a couple moments there was a noticeable change in the strange seal. Jiraiya grinned viciously as he felt the sigil give. It was like poking a finger through thick Styrofoam. Even with three powerful ninja focusing their chakra into it, the sigil still resisted several minutes before it cracked completely.

Shizune paused as she watched the glowing red seal dim to black before breaking apart and fading from the boy's skin. As she watched, the Kyuubi seal slowly reformed into its normal state. She laid her suture and needle down and tried a diagnostic jutsu on the boy. The chakra worked like a charm.

"Tsunade-sama! The jutsu are working now!" Shizune called to her mentor. Her voice felt louder than usual, now that the noise from the chakra winds had died down. The Hokage got to her feet and staggered over to Naruto.

"Let me see…" She said as she performed the same technique as her student. Her eyes closed in concentration, but they snapped open in surprise.

"Dammit to hell…" Tsunade muttered. Sensing two presences hovering behind her, she turned to look over her shoulder.

"Hatake-san, if you had come ten minutes later, Naruto would have died. Thank you… And I don't mean that just as the Hokage," The Sannin said. Kakashi gave a nonchalant shrug.

"Glad I showed up on time for once," He calmly replied. Tsunade noticed that he didn't cover the Sharingan. In fact, he was watching both her and Shizune's hand motions very carefully with it.

"How is he? How bad is it?" Jiraiya asked.

Tsunade sighed and motioned to Shizune to keep stitching the boy. She turned to look at the two men.

"Whatever made that seal knew just how to kill a demon-vessel in one strike. The Yondaime's seal allows the Kyuubi's chakra to mix freely with Naruto's, with the only limit being how much the fox is willing to give up or how much Naruto's body can handle. This mixing of human and demon chakra isn't harmful in anyway to him, even without the seal in place. The seal just acts as a one-way floodgate and the two chakras merge naturally in his inner coils."

Tsunade turned back and began perform a delicate healing jutsu. She trailed the glowing energy over the areas that Shizune had stitched up. The boy's torn flesh began to sluggishly mold back together, though not as much as it should have.

"That _thing_ though… I don't know what it is or does exactly, but I do know what it did to Naruto."

"It mangled his chakra somehow, right?" Jiraiya asked, while crossing his arms in thought. Kakashi continued to watch both the stitching and healing jutsu with undeterred focus.

"Much worse than just that," Tsunade said. "The new seal warped the original seal to cause the demonic charka to react violently with the human chakra. It was like mixing potassium with water."

Shizune looked up from her work with a shocked look on her face. She was the only one with enough real chemistry knowledge to know what that meant. She grimaced and returned to her work. Naruto's bleeding had slowed enough that the tourniquets could be removed. Looking at the blue-white flesh of his arms and legs, the medic-nin prayed that the Kyuubi would be able to restored function to the boy's limbs. A shinobi would rather die than lose the use of their arms and legs…

"Basically, it caused the chakra to explosively tear out of him. The damage to his muscle groups came from the inside of his body outwards, destroying them almost completely," Tsunade continued as she traced a line of stitches along Naruto's collarbone. "Not only did the chakra destroy his muscles, but it also screwed up his inner coils _and_ acted as a scrambler for any incoming chakra. That's why our healing jutsu had no effect when we first brought him in."

"I wonder why the hell those bastards used it on him…" Jiraiya muttered. Kakashi's ears perked up.

"Who did this?" He asked, though he had a sneaking suspicion he already knew.

Jiraiya glanced around and made sure nobody else was in immediate earshot.

"Akatsuki," He mumbled as he leaned in towards the younger man. The copy-nin only narrowed his eyes and nodded. He had yet to break eye contact with the medic-nins' hands.

"From the effects you described, I'm guessing the seal was a mistake on their part," The Toad Hermit continued in a marginally louder tone towards the Hokage. "All our information said they wanted Kyuubi, and by proxy Naruto, alive for whatever psycho reason they cooked up. Makes no sense for them to kill him in the middle of nowhere. I thought they were a bit more competent than this, trying out an untested seal out on their main goal."

"Hmm…" Kakashi muttered, taking in the news.

"Well, whatever mistakes they made, that thing did a number on his chakra. Even now my healing jutsu isn't having much effect," Tsunade said. "We'll have to manually stitch him up before trying any healing. Though it could be because my chakra is so damn low from breaking that seal."

"Hokage-sama," Kakashi broke in, "Let me take over for you. I still have most of my chakra left. You'll be able to focus on closing up his critical areas."

Tsunade gave the man a critical look.

"You know medical jutsu?" She asked, not having seen such skills anywhere on the elite jounin's rather lengthy profile.

Kakashi winked with his normal eye and tapped the left side of his head, next to his Sharingan eye. Tsunade was torn between whacking the man for stealing her technique and relief that he could keep going in her place. She _was_ getting dangerously low on chakra.

"Alright, but you better have damn good chakra control. Just trail behind Shizune as she works. Don't worry too much if it's not having much of an effect. Just do your best with it and move on. We're just trying to keep him alive for now," The Hokage said. She moved over and let Kakashi kneel next to her. She was only partially surprised when he performed the jutsu near flawlessly and picked up where she left off. Well, at least he'd have that skill if he was ever injured in the field…

"Hoping the Kyuubi will pick up and repair the kid where we can't?" Jiraiya asked, leaning over to watch the assorted ninja work.

"Absolutely. As it stands, there's no way for Naruto to ever resume active duty if the fox can't undo the destruction done to his system. Hell, he probably won't ever be able to walk again if the Kyuubi can't heal him."

"What's the extent of the damage?" Kakashi asked, as he calmly channeled chakra into the boy's damaged flesh.

"What isn't damaged is more like it…" Tsunade grumbled, though her anger wasn't at the boy.

"To start with, his inner coils are royally screwed up, even with the Akatsuki seal gone. The demon chakra and human chakra won't work properly together for quite some time. That's what's keeping Kyuubi from healing Naruto right now. The demon can't control any chakra it sends out, keeping it from repairing anything. I'm surprised it was even able to get his blood production up enough to save the boy.

"Speaking of which, I guess the fox decided to go overboard in the areas it could still affect. The Kyuubi made Naruto's blood production increase over twenty times its natural rate. That's _the_ factor that saved his life. The cost though, is that it's stripped his body of almost all its reserves. What's left of his muscle groups have atrophied. If he ever gets back on his feet, he's lost months if not years of physical training. Worse than just that is the damage the tourniquets did."

Tsunade gave a look to Jiraiya.

"They kept blood in him and that kept his body from completely eating itself, but as it is his arms and legs are virtually dead from anoxia. I think the Kyuubi can repair the damage in time so we'll hold off amputation, but it may be weeks or even months before he regains use of them. He won't be happy about that."

"That's an understatement," Jiraiya muttered. Oh well, the brat could yell at him as much as he wanted, as long as he was alive to do the yelling.

"Internal damage is minimal, thank the Kami. He's busted a few ribs and cracked a vertebrae, but it's nothing life threatening. There's not much else, except for his destroyed muscles. The muscular damage extends from the front and back of his upper torso to his upper arms and most of his legs. Those sectors are almost totally destroyed. It's not really a matter of healing as much as regenerating new flesh from scratch. Even I can't do that to another person. If Kyuubi doesn't rebuild his muscle structure, he'll never leave a bed again. Hell, he'll never be able to lift his arms again," Tsunade grimly finished.

"Well maybe the demon's taken a liking to the kid," Jiraiya muttered. Three sets of eyes gave him a look that said, "Did you hit your head!"

Sweat-dropping, the Toad Hermit tried to cover for himself, "Okay, well Kyuubi probably hates Naruto more than any other human except the Yondaime, but even so, it'd be suicidal to _not_ get the boy back into fighting condition. _They_ won't leave off just 'cause the brat's bedridden."

Tsunade 'hmm-ed' in thought.

"Well, that's not here and now. Let's finish patching him up and get him to a bed. He needs nutrients badly and I want to get an IV in him as soon as possible."

Nobody said anything else as they worked on Naruto.

* * *

Staring at the wall for three hours isn't healthy. Ino had reached that conclusion 2 hours and thirty five minutes ago. At least the wall was better than that hanging clock's taunting ticking. This was even worse than waiting on Chouji. The Hokage had already healed her teammate by the time she had gotten there and she only had to sit around for a half hour while waiting for him to be moved to a normal hospital room. Besides, she'd had Chomaru for company. Though the clan head was a bit intimidating, he was quite friendly to her and they had passed the time talking about some of Chouji and Shikamaru's more amusing antics.

She'd never waited while someone was dying though. By herself, no less

The only thing that kept her from storming in there and demanding to know what was going on was the memory of Naruto's decimated form. She had little desire to see _that_ again before he was all comfortably bandaged up. Besides, she might interrupt some delicate procedure that could cost the boy his life and she didn't want that hanging over her head. Still, this waiting was getting to be painful. She would just peek in, see how far along it all was, and sit back down. It's not like it'd be hard to look inside, considering no one had bothered to put the doors back in place (read: no one was strong enough to dislodge the doors from where Tsunade had embedded them in the walls.)

Ino had stood and was just leaning to look into the doorway when both Tsunade and Jiraiya came rushing out the room and down the hall. Tsunade was carefully carrying a large, blanket wrapped bundle. The two Sannin disappeared around the corner before Ino could get a word out. She was about to follow them, having a pretty good idea what was in the blanket (what was with Sannins and toting Naruto around like a sack of potatoes?), when a large hand landed on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, he's fine. They're just in a rush to get him into a hospital room and on a nutrient drip or something," Kakashi said. Ino looked up at the tall man and jumped at the sight of his blood-red left eye. The copy-nin noticed her stare.

"Oh, whoops," The jounin said sheepishly, as he pulled his forehead protector back down. "Forgot I still had that open. I was wondering why I was getting dizzy."

A large sweat-drop appeared on the back of Ino's head. What a flake.

"So he's alright?" The genin asked, changing the subject. Kakashi started to answer when he suddenly wobbled on his feet. Ino let out a startled yelp as the large man nearly bowled her over on his way to the floor. Both ninjas were surprised when his fall stopped as the blonde girl caught him under his arm. Years of dragging Chouji out of restaurants when the chubby boy had eaten himself halfway to oblivion had paid off. Staggering, Ino managed to get the tall jounin over to the bench she'd been sitting on.

"Chakra exhaustion… You moron! I thought you're a jounin, for Kami's sake!" The girl snarled as she propped the Copy-Ninja's semi-limp form back against the wall. "You're supposed to know better, you idiot…Naruto must have rubbed off on you."

"Nope, I've always acted like this," Kakashi replied with a cheerful little upturn to his visible eye. Ino fixed him with a baleful glare that could've wilted all the flowers in her parents' shop. The Copy-Ninja's eye seemed to 'smile' even brighter.

"Pain in the ass…" The girl muttered as she sat down next to him. "So how is he?"

Kakashi's eye returned to normal and visibly drooped lower than usual.

"He's alive. That's really the best we could've hoped for. His muscle structure was destroyed throughout most of his body. Odds are he'll never regain full use of his arms and legs. Even if he does, the injuries have set him back years in physical training. He'll have to re-teach his body how to be a shinobi all over again," The jounin said, his voice low with sadness rather than laziness for once.

"Oh…" Ino said in a very small voice. "Then his dream…"

Kakashi nodded.

"He'll never be strong enough to become Hokage," The copy-nin replied, his shoulders sagging.

Flashing images of Naruto screaming out Hokage at the top of his impressive lungs moved through Ino's mind. When you thought of Naruto, Hokage was always in there somewhere. Everyone in the Rookie 9 knew he dreamed of being Hokage. Hell, _anyone_ who really knew anything about Naruto knew that. Even in their earliest days at the academy, the hyper blonde was always spouting off about it. Even if it was just nonsense, at least Naruto was able to dream and work towards his goal. To have that taken away from you completely must be a terrible feeling.

"But Tsunade-sama was able to heal even Lee! Can't she…?" Ino trailed off at the look in Kakashi's eye.

"Even the Godaime has limits. Lee was all there, even if he was damaged. There are pieces of Naruto that are simply gone," The jounin sighed. Days like this, he felt all 28 years of his life. He shouldn't feel this tired when he wasn't even 30, dammit. Not all of his exhaustion could be blamed on over-using the Sharingan yet again.

"Kakashi-san… Who did this to him?" Ino asked. It was one of the thoughts that had repeated itself like a broken record the hours she'd been waiting.

"…Very dangerous people," Was all Kakashi said in reply. At Ino's questioning stare, he sighed. "I'm sorry Ino-san, I really am, but I can't tell you anything specific. All I can say is these people have been after him for years and with his injuries, he's a sitting duck. Even the Hokage's ANBU guards might not be able to protect him. If he doesn't recover…"

"Oh…" Ino trailed off. They sat in silence for a few minutes longer, before she jumped up.

"Well, we'll just have to go see him then!" She declared. "He won't stay down for long. He'll be up and destroying people's eardrums in no time! Even _I_ know you can't keep him from his dream and I barely know the idiot!"

Kakashi had a surprised look in his slouching eye as he watched the girl in front of him as she scrounged up a crutch from a nearby storage room.

'Naruto… Even if you don't get your dream, you've gained another friend.'

The tall jounin didn't say a word as Ino fussed about, hauling him up and propping the crutch under his arm. Then again, Kakashi didn't need to say anything, even when Ino grabbed his unoccupied arm and held him up on the other side. His visible eye was upside down and beaming brightly enough to give passing medics sunburns.

For a man who never showed his face, Kakashi was surprisingly expressive.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **

**New Jutsu**:

**Kuroi Rasengan** (Dark Rasengan) (A Rank Jutsu): Fire Elemental battle skill. Nin-jutsu. No seals used.

It's basically the same thing as a normal Rasengan, except it's composed entirely of demon chakra and is elementally Fire rather than Wind. It still acts in the same destructive, drilling-spinning manner of the Rasengan, but also burns and melts the target. The slashing and drilling aspects are weakened in favor of the extreme heat damage. This move cannot be used to stun an opponent (like Jiraiya did when he first demonstrated the Rasengan to Naruto) as the heat is too high to control. This jutsu causes internal damage like the Rasengan, but burns and cauterizes organs and veins rather than slashing and twisting them. The Dark Rasengan is about twice the size of the normal Rasengan and about 1.5 to 2.5 times as powerful, due to the stronger nature of demonic chakra. It's the core component to the 'Level 2' Rasengan that Naruto used in his fight with Sasuke at the Valley of the End (Note: from the manga perspective. It seems to be different for the anime.)

**General**: Some might notice I killed off the Akatsuki member from chapter 247-249 of the manga. Quite frankly, I'm pissed off that some smirking, ugly little twerp who plays with _plastic explosives_ of all things can beat the living crap out of Gaara. So I killed him/her/whatevr-the-fuck-it-is off in protest. Has anyone else noticed that for a super-powerful, demon-possessed killing machine, Gaara gets his ass beat all the time? Lee knocked him around, Sasuke put a hole in him, Naruto beat his ass, Kinimaro nearly _killed_ him, and now this ugly Akatsuki loser blasts him halfway to death. Anyways, to anyone who actually _likes_ tanuki-boy, he will be a major part in this story and he will kick ass. Okay, rant done.

MAJOR side note: I'll use the original Japanese names for the series jutsu, but for the ones I've made up I'll use a Japanese name the first time, then English from then on. I don't pretend to know Japanese with any skill and I probably butcher the language. All skill/name translations are looked up through various online dictionaries, but they could easily be wrong. If they are, please let me know if you have a better translation. This was just for your information, in case anyone wonders at the odd mix of Japanese and English jutsu names.

As a future note, this story is going to definitely be Naruto X Ino (like you couldn't guess) but will likely be Naruto X Ino X ? in _very_ later chapters. The other character will _not_ be an OC… I wouldn't curse anyone with reading yet _another _Mary-Sue or Gary-Stu or whatever… I originally had this as an idea for threeway of some sort and was just going to be that, but then I realized there was an _actual_ story in here, so I decided to try and write the damn thing. As for OC's, I will put some in, but only as a supporting role for the original Naruto characters (who'd want to read thirty pages on someone _I_ made up anyways? We're here for Naruto and Co. right?) I have some ideas on other pairings, but I'm still open to suggestions at this point.

As another side note, I may add brief omakes to each chapter later on if the story gets off the ground. Not priority though.

**Reviews**: I love getting reviews for my stuff. I really appreciate _constructive_ criticism. If there's something wrong with my story, please point it out to me or give me a few tips of advice. I am an amateur and it could really improve later chapters if I know where I'm screwing up. I don't like flames as they don't really help anyone. You totally hate my stuff, read something else. is a _big_ site, you know .

**Next chapter**: Chap. 1 posted on 3/04/05. I hope to post Chap. 2 next Friday, 3/11/05.

**Omake!** (If you don't want the mood spoiled then just skip ahead to the next chapter.) (Added 4/02/05)

Omake 1 (Eh…Removed it cause I want to write a better one later.)

Omake 2 sent in by **Dany le Fou**.

At that moment, Jiraiya felt like yanking the jounin's mask down and kissing him till his mismatched eyes crossed.

In fact, he did just that. Several things happened.

Shizune fainted at seeing the two greatest perverts she knew kissing.

Tsunade was so shocked she lost her hold on her genjutsu and resumed her normal form. Instantly, all the male medic nins (as well as a couple of female) who had fantasized on the Hokage ran for the nearest bathroom. It would take days to clean up the vomit afterwards.

And Naruto chose that very moment to open his eyes. The first thing he saw was the two men. 'Bastard fox! Reopen my wounds NOW! I'd rather be dead than live with that image.'

End Omake 2

(Thanks dude!)

Happy April Fool's Day!


	2. It was the One Eyed Man!

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: A year and a half after leaving Konoha to train with Jiraiya, Naruto is severely injured during a surprise attack by Akatsuki. Jiraiya rushed him back to the Leaf and his efforts combined with Tsunade and Kakashi were able to save the boy's life. Naruto is still badly crippled, both in body and chakra with an uncertain chance for recovery. Ino followed Jiraiya and Gamabunta to the hospital, where she meets Kakashi.

**Chap. 2 – "I didn't kill him! It wasn't me! It was the one-ar- uh, one-eyed man!"**

"Alright, now _you_ don't move."

"Hai, hai…"

"I'll be back as soon as I find Sakura and get some flowers. I'll see if I can find another crutch for you while I'm out."

Ino left the strange jounin in a chair next to Naruto's bed as she went to find her rival. She was relieved to note that Naruto didn't look too bad. Well, to be fair, that was mostly because she couldn't actually _see_ any part of him. The blonde was decked out head to toe in bandages. Only his eyes, mouth, and some of his scalp were exposed. Okay, so he didn't look _good_ but he still didn't look _bad_. Ino carefully forced the memory of the blonde's mangled body from her mind.

'He's alive. He'll be fine. He's alive,' The pretty blonde mentally repeated that to herself as she walked. She glanced up to notice that she'd walked through half the hospital without realizing it.

"Where the hell is Sakura?" Ino complained out loud as she stopped at a crossway in the hall, looking left and right for the pink-haired chuunin.

"What do you want, Ino-pig?" A feminine voice came from behind her.

Ino's eyes took in Sakura as she turned around. Not much had changed about the girl in the last couple years. She still wore her hair short and had the same style of dress she had since the academy. The biggest change was that her rival carried herself with much greater confidence now. It irked Ino to no end that Sakura had grown so much under Tsunade's mentorship. Her own jounin instructor was as lazy as ever, spending more time hanging out and playing games with Shikamaru than he did training her and Chouji. Sakura, on the other hand, had passed the first chuunin exam after Naruto left.

Something she took great delight in reminding Ino.

Ino hated to lose, but in recent times she found it was worst to be left behind. Most of the Rookie 9 plus Team Gai had already made chuunin. Kiba, Lee, Naruto, and herself were the only ones who were still genin. Naruto at least had the excuse of being on a training trip the whole time and would likely dominate any exam he took in the future (assuming, of course, he recovered.) Kiba demonstrated good skill, but he still had a blustery ego to overcome and that cost him every time. Lee was an odd case. The Hokage had refused to allow him into the exam immediately after his operation to make certain he was fully recovered.

The boy was disappointed, but he merely used that as motivation for training. However, he got a nasty surprise in the next two exams when he was beaten by gen-jutsu techniques each time. Lee's tai-jutsu rivaled if not surpassed most jounins' abilities, but his weakness to nin-jutsu and gen-jutsu held him back. And worse still, word had gotten out about around amongst the younger Leaf-nins about an incredibly powerful genin who could be dropped like a fly with well placed gen-jutsu. Other genins taking the exams knew what to expect from Lee. He kept doggedly trying, but he had yet to devise a counter-strategy.

Ino, on the other hand… She was weak. That was it. She lacked the skill and power to keep up with the others. Of the twelve members of their group (if Sasuke was still included), she was at the bottom end of the totem pole. She had one special skill and it had a terrible rate of success in active combat. Like Lee, word had spread about her and everyone that fought her knew to avoid her Shintenshin no Jutsu. She'd been soundly beaten by mediocre opponents in every exam she'd been in. It was really starting to piss her off, but there was little she could do without an instructor who took training seriously.

Well, except try to make Sakura prematurely deaf in their arguments.

"Finally! Forehead, I've been looking for you everywhere!" Ino exclaimed as she walked up to her friend/rival. Sakura's face reddened in anger at the nickname.

"Oh really… What do you want, _Pig_?" The chuunin asked, one hand on her hip in annoyance.

Ino snorted, "Just wanted to let you know your old teammate is here in the hospital."

Sakura's face lit up in unexpected hope.

"You… You mean… Sasuke-kun? Where! What room is he in!"

"What!" Ino yelled, startled by the mention of the traitor Uchiha. She's still hung up on him? "No, you pink-haired ditz! I mean Naruto! He's upstairs right now. Didn't Hokage-sama tell you?"

"Oh…" Sakura said, her face noticeably falling. "No, I didn't meet with her today. Naruto's here?"

"Yeah…" Ino replied. They stood there for several moments in uncomfortable silence.

"Well…?" Ino finally prodded. "Aren't you going to go see him?"

"Yeah… I'll see him in awhile. It'll be nice to catch up," The chuunin replied, glancing down at some of the documents she was holding.

She wasn't sure, but that sounded like a casual dismissal to Ino. She had the sudden urge to shake her friend, but she wasn't exactly sure why.

"That's it? You'll see him later?" The genin demanded, her voice sharp with disbelief. Sakura gave her a hard look, barely looking away from the forms.

"Yeah, that's it. I'll see him on my rounds anyways. What's your problem, Pig?" The chuunin asked, annoyed with her friend's tone.

Ino met her rival's hard look with one that could melt steel or make her teammates whimper in utter terror.

"Nothing, really. I just thought you had, you know, _loyalty_. Guess I was wrong…" She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Sakura stood up straighter, letting her papers hang by her side.

"What crawled up your butt? I said I'll see him and I will! I have other duties I have to do… You know, _chuunin_ duties," She smirked, making a deliberate dig at the difference in their rank.

"Don't give me that shit!" Ino snarled, forcing down her rage at her rival's jab. "A minute ago you were praying Sasuke was back. If it was _him_, you'd go running to his side in a second like some pathetic groupie. Funny how you're ignoring the friend who's done everything for you, when you'd jump to kiss the traitor's ass in a heartbeat. Nice place to put your loyalties, Sakura!"

Sakura's temper boiled. She was three seconds from decking Ino into the wall. What the hell did the Pig know about it anyways?

"Why the hell would I go running to see the idiot for some stupid injury he probably did to himself! Maybe the moron finally pissed off someone better than him and they put the Dead-Last in his place!" The chuunin yelled. She wasn't really thinking about what she was saying and wouldn't have used those words to describe Naruto if she'd been thinking clearly. She _did_ owe him her life after all. Ino's remarks had struck home though. Thinking clearly was the last thing she was doing.

Ino's mind flashed to Naruto cheering on Sakura in the exams, hearing about his 'promise-of-a-lifetime', and finally her conversation with Kakashi and how Naruto might have to give up his dream entirely. That memory was replaced by the one of the blonde's shredded body lying in the sealing room.

**_Dead-Last._**

A loud _crack_ made both medics and patients alike look over at the two kunoichi. Sakura held a hand to her reddening cheek, as she stared in shock at her friend. Ino was slowly letting her hand drop back to her side. Despite the aura of near-violence they'd been radiating, the blonde's slap had taken her completely by surprise. Sakura's mouth hung open as she watched Ino's face shift through a kaleidoscope of emotion. The genin seemed to be struggling to find something foul enough to say to the medic.

"…Ungrateful bitch," Ino finally managed to spit out. Her sharp gray eyes looked downright vicious as she glared at Sakura. Without another word, she turned and stormed away.

Two full minutes passed before Sakura finally got her brain working again. She spent a split second pondering Ino's words before the rage hit. She dropped the documents that had been so important moments ago and ran through the halls and out the main lobby after her friend. She caught up to Ino about a block from the hospital, her friend's bright hair sticking out in the bright noon sunshine. She grabbed her rival's arm and swung her around, before slamming her into the wall of a nearby building.

"What the _fuck_ was that? Do you want a fight, you blonde bimbo? You want a rematch? You want to see what I can do now? Huh! Answer me, you stupid bitch!" Sakura growled, her grip on Ino's dress tightening. The genin gave her look of icy loathing so venomous that it made Sakura flinch even in her anger. Her hold weakened enough that Ino was able to bring her hands up into the beginnings of her family jutsu.

Sakura dropped her rival like she'd been electrocuted and flipped backwards a good ten feet, dropping into a stance as she landed. Ino allowed her hands to fall to her sides as soon as Sakura let her go. Somehow, despite their difference in power and rank, Sakura got the distinct feeling she was being looked down on.

"I have no respect for someone who doesn't value their comrades," Ino said. Memories of Chouji lying in a hospital bed, smiling at her despite his emaciated form, and of Shikamaru's bandaged hand briefly passed through her mind. She turned and kept walking away from her rival.

"You're not just a dumb little girl anymore, Sakura. You've lost sight of what's really important in life, assuming you ever had it. If I'd known how you'd turn out, I would never have spoken to you back then."

_That_ cut through every bit of Sakura's anger and left her with a cold, stinging sensation in her chest. For all their rivalry and arguments, Ino was the first person ever to befriend her. The blond had given her confidence and companionship during the loneliest part of her life. She knew who was responsible for her growth. If Ino hadn't looked past the snot nosed crybaby back then, Sakura would've never even made it to genin. That knowledge was a blow to her pride and that was the source of her jabs about their differing strength. But she couldn't deny that even though she was far stronger now, Ino was the one who built the foundation to that strength. The same part of her that treasured their friendship was forever grateful to the girl for acknowledging her back then. That Ino regretted her decision hurt her more than she'd ever allowed herself to believe possible.

How like Ino to strip all her anger and pride away with a single cutting sentence…

"W-What…? What're you talking about?" Sakura grimaced at the tremor and shock in her voice.

"You heard me," Ino replied, stopping her walk but not turning around.

"But… Why? Why're you so mad about all this?" Sakura asked with a little desperation.

Ino stayed silent for a long moment, before finally turning to face her friend. Her eyes held a tired coldness to them.

"You called him Dead-Last," She said.

"But… I mean, I was ju-"

"You called him Dead-Last," Ino repeated. "Wasn't Sasuke the one who got the idea to call him that? Why the hell would you call him a nickname thought up by a _traitor_ when he's your most loyal comrade?"

Sakura didn't say anything. That comment cut _deep_, but she couldn't make herself react to it. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at her friend.

"Dead-Last…" Ino continued in an almost thoughtful tone. "He's saved both your life and Sasuke's, when neither of you thought he could fight his way through a yard of preschoolers. He proved that he's at _least_ stronger than Neji, who was the number one for his class. He caught the eye of a Legendary Sannin and somehow managed to get the guy to train him. He even tried to bring Sasuke back for you."

Ino crossed the distance between them and stopped a couple feet from the chuunin. Her eyes glittered like pieces of blue-gray crystal in the bright sunlight.

"He's been in love with you for years and he'd bring back someone totally unworthy of you, just because you asked him," She quietly said. "I know all these things about him and I've spoken to him roughly three times since I met him at the academy. Hell, our whole crowd of friends knows this about him. You, his teammate and friend, should know that he's a better human being than Sasuke will ever be. He'd die for you. For his friends. To protect this village."

Ino leaned her face in till her nose almost brushed Sakura's.

"And you call him Dead-Last and say you'll visit later, when you feel like it," The blonde said in barely a whisper. Sakura flinched at that, guilt welling up despite her confusion at Ino's odd behavior. Hadn't Sasuke-kun himself admitted that Naruto saved them both from Gaara's full power? Hadn't Naruto sworn to bring Sasuke-kun back no matter what? Hadn't he promised her again that he'd keep trying, no matter how long it took, even as he lay in a hospital bed covered in bandages? She only noticed the faint, flowery scent of Ino's perfume when it faded.

She looked up. Ino was already walking away again, having decided to let the medic stew in her thoughts. Some part of Sakura couldn't let the girl walk away.

"Wait! I don't get it! You don't even know him! Why are you so upset about this? This isn't like you at all!" She yelled. Immediately after she said that, the thought occurred to her that maybe this was _exactly_ like Ino. The girl had a history of finding things other people thought were worthless and staking a personal claim on them. Sakura herself was one of them. Was her rival doing the same thing to Naruto?

The memory of Naruto's shredded flesh and the smell of his blood assaulted Ino's mind. The same smell from her dream. She felt her anger replaced by sudden nausea. She wanted a shower.

"Sakura…" She said, not turning to face her rival. "Go to back to the hospital. Go to room 451. Look at the person…what's _left_ of the person lying on the bed. Look at him long and hard and think about what you called him. Then remember that you were willing to brush him aside."

Ino disappeared into the crowd of people walking around them without another word.

Sakura was left with a sinking feeling of dread.

'What's _left_ of him?'

* * *

Kakashi awoke from his peaceful doze when he felt a foreign chakra enter the room. With his chakra depleted, it was all he'd been able do to resist finding an empty room and curling up in a bed for a day or two. The thought of what Ino would do to him if she found him like that had sent a shiver of terror up his spine. He had settled for using the reclining function of the chair next to Naruto's bed. Tsunade had been redirecting extra funds to the hospital since her inauguration and it really showed in the revamped hospital. Naruto's room was large enough for three beds. A large window ran parallel to his bed and there were a couple of these reclining chairs spread across the room. There was even a small couch underneath the window. Yes, Tsunade took her patients seriously, though most of this was probably for the comfort of anxious visitors.

Kakashi shrugged of thoughts of the room's comfortable decor and focused his eye on the visitor.

Umino Iruka stood in front of him, staring at the bandage swathed form of his young friend. The Hokage must've thought to tell him the bad news.

The scarred chuunin looked far older than his young years as he slowly crossed the room and set a small card on the table next to the bed. A small drawing of a bowl of ramen decorated the front of the gift. Looking down at the boy, he gently ruffled what little of the blonde's hair that was exposed.

"How bad is it?" He asked, not taking his attention off Naruto.

Kakashi sighed and slowly gave the chuunin the list of injuries Naruto had suffered. Through it all, the man's expression never changed. It was only the way his eyes twitched every time Kakashi described an injury that his thoughts were betrayed.

"Who did this?" He asked when Kakashi trailed off. There was a boiling rage in the man's eyes that would have made the copy-nin flinch had it been directed at him.

"I can't tell you," Kakashi replied. His voice sounded honestly remorseful, as opposed to their argument before the chuunin exam almost two years ago.

"Can't or won't, jounin?" Iruka coldly replied.

"Can't, chuunin, and wouldn't even if I could," Kakashi answered evenly, giving the chuunin a firm stare. "Hokage-sama ordered this to be kept quiet and even if she hadn't, you wouldn't want to go hunting these people. I think Naruto would want you here with him when he wakes up and not lying dead in the woods somewhere."

Iruka's anger had been growing until the copy-nin mentioned Naruto. That popped his rising fury like a balloon. No, he wouldn't go and get himself killed over this. Naruto would rip him a new one if he died… Though, mentioning the Hokage made his mind click to something else.

"His injuries… The Hokage wasn't able to do anything?" The dark-haired man asked.

"No," Kakashi replied, shaking his head. His visible eye was rather mournful. "Even _she_ was hard pressed just to save his life. We're hoping his… _tenant_ may be able to repair him in the long term, but Godaime-sama said that it'll be a long time before it can even get started. His inner coils are really messed up right now. A Hyuuga would be hard pressed to do worse."

"His ten-… Ah, I see," Iruka said. The fox. "So, _it_ can do something for him?"

"Naruto's healing is normally off the scale. Just one of the abilities he gets from his tenant," The copy-nin informed. He wasn't surprised Iruka knew nothing about what the Kyuubi's powers did for Naruto. It was likely an uncomfortable subject for both ninjas. "Naruto's injuries are a result of certain individuals tampering with the seal. His guest can't control chakra in Naruto's body, so the healing factor is severely limited. Hokage-sama is still hopeful though. It's doubtful the resident will allow its only line of defense to weaken unless it has no choice."

Iruka nodded, his eyes downcast. That blasted demon was the very definition of mixed blessing. A long silence stretched out between them, with Kakashi allowing his mind to wander and the teacher staring at his former student. After a few minutes, the chuunin gave Naruto one last hair ruffle and walked to the door. The copy-nin watched his movements with surprise.

"You're leaving?" Kakashi asked, a slight note of surprise in his voice. Iruka glared at him.

"Not by choice," The chuunin said with gritted teeth. Why did it always feel like the great Copy-Ninja Kakashi was looking down on him in some way? "I have a mission out in Wind Country that I have to leave for in twenty minutes. Unlike you, my name doesn't carry much weight with the Hokage and I still have to go on it…Though she was kind enough to delay the mission by an hour so I could visit Naruto."

Kakashi held his hands up in a placating manner.

"Easy! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just thought you'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming away from him," The tall man said. Some of Iruka's anger deflated, but there were still a few embers burning.

"Like I said, I don't have any choice. I shouldn't even be doing it, but there's no jounin available," He grumbled.

"Really? What rank is it?" Kakashi asked, his curiosity growing.

"A Rank. I'm going with a team to assassinate a missing-nin who's been making trouble. The Sand's almost as hard up for ninjas as we are and the Kazekage asked this as a personal favor of Godaime-sama. Seems like this guy's running amuck in outlying Wind villages killing civilians and such," Iruka replied. The mission wasn't classified, so it wasn't like he couldn't tell Kakashi.

"You have back up?" The copy-nin asked, a slight note of concern in his voice. It wasn't that he doubted Iruka's abilities, but taking on an A-Rank criminal by himself was just foolhardy.

The schoolteacher made a half grin.

"Two jounins and a Hunter-nin. They're the ones that wanted an extra man in case something went wrong. This guy's supposed to have some bizarre and powerful Bloodline, but we should be able to handle it," There was a hint of pride in Iruka's voice. It wasn't often he went on A Ranks and he usually looked forward to them (although this one couldn't have come at a worse time.) The Hokage had mentioned that of the chuunin available, the ANBU had specifically asked for him. It wasn't in him to disappoint someone's confidence in his abilities, but he was a little curious about why they picked a schoolteacher of all people.

"Hmm…Be careful, regardless. Bloodline Limits are unpredictable and who knows what other tricks he may have," Kakashi said seriously, a lifetime of experience reinforcing his words. "I'd offer to take over for you, but I… err…"

"What?" Iruka asked. It'd almost be worth the humiliation of Kakashi replacing him if it meant he'd be able to watch over Naruto.

"I sorta can't move," Kakashi replied with a near visible heart popping up by his head. Iruka nearly face-vaulted at the jounin's sunny expression.

"What have you done to yourself _now_?" The chuunin asked sarcastically. Kakashi's cheerful eye smile didn't even twitch at the tone.

"I burned all my chakra using the Sharingan and a jutsu I haven't mastered," The jounin replied.

Iruka had the urge to whack the copy-nin over the head like one of his students.

"What the hell's wrong with you! You're a jounin for Kami's sake! You're supposed to know your limits! Moron!" Iruka roared, his teacher mentality coming to bear. Kakashi stared at him for a moment, before snapping his fingers.

"You were Ino-san's teacher, weren't you?" The copy-nin replied.

"Yeah, how could you tell?" Iruka replied blankly.

Kakashi sweat-dropped.

"Uh… never mind."

Iruka got a downright evil look on his face.

"Oh ho! So Ino's been here? And you can't move, huh? Hmmm, the great Copy-Cat Kakashi is totally helpless while Yamanaka Ino is hanging around…" Kakashi felt a shiver of fear at the man's wicked expression. Why, oh why, did he taunt the chuunin during the pre-exams two years ago? "I think I'll be going now…Got that mission and all. I'll see you later…Maybe you'll even be alive."

With that, Iruka walked out the door. His cheerful whistling was a stark contrast to the psychotic grin on his face. Kakashi was left to wonder why a man was so happy to face an A Rank missing-nin instead of being defenseless near Ino. He promptly shut that thought out of his mind, an image of the blonde girl's rage filled face thoroughly reminding him of why he had never gotten married. Well, it's not like a thin girl like her could do much to a high level jounin like himself, right?

Right.

He still made sure his favorite copy of Icha Icha was well hidden in his side pouch before going back to sleep.

* * *

Ino grumbled something rather foul and shifted the weight in her arms. When she'd gotten home, her parents were waiting and they'd gotten into a long argument (they were understandably pissed off that she had disappeared without opening the shop and had left the door open all while a gigantic toad was running around the city.) Wanting to hurry back to the hospital, she'd done the typical teenager routine and stormed into her room while yelling at the top of her (considerable) lungs. They'd left her alone long enough for her to take a shower, swipe some flowers, and sneak back out. She really didn't want run into Sakura again today, but if she wanted Naruto to have some flowers in his room, she'd have to risk it.

The idiot had better appreciate it.

"Stupid parents. Stupid Sakura. Stupid…uh…evil assassins who pick on hyper blonde fuzz balls," Ino muttered, running a little low on things to complain about. "Stupid long walk to the hospital."

"Hello, Ino-san!" A cheerful voice called, breaking through her dark thoughts.

"Oh… Hello Lee-san," Ino politely said as she looked up. The boy dodged his way through the crowd towards her, smiling quite happily. The Rookie 9 and Gai's Team got along pretty well with each other and they would often stop and chat if they saw each other in the street (well, not really _chat_ in Neji and Shino's case, but even they would at least nod a greeting as they passed by.)

"How are you today, Ino-san?" The tai-jutsu specialist asked. Rock Lee had gotten noticeably taller in the last couple years and his face had grown sharper. His green jumpsuit and haircut remained (sadly) the same. He smiled cheerfully, though he looked a little out of breath. Ino's eyes traced to his feet, where the solid packed dirt of the street was noticeably depressed underneath him.

Ah, he must've upped his weights again.

"I'm okay Lee-san, though I'm feeling kind of tired. Did you boost your training again?" She asked. Ino might be the queen bitch to people who pissed her off (i.e. Sakura, Shikamaru, Chouji, Asuma-sensei, that idiot Kiba, her parents, that one chuunin who looked at her funny last week… well, you get the idea) but she didn't find Lee too annoying. He was a little odd and downright creepy in his obsession with all things Gai related, but he worked his ass off to compensate for his weakness and was genuinely friendly to people, which was good in her book.

"YOSH! I added another thirty pounds to each leg this morning and promised to do five thousand push-ups if I can't run around the village seventy times!" Lee declared, with his bandaged fist clenched in the air and fire blazing in his eyes.

'Okay… So he's _really_ odd…And he needs to take some valium. But he's still a good guy,' Ino thought as she watched the genin hoot and cheer himself on while he jogged/hopped/danced in circles around her.

"Lee-san! Calm down!" She yelled as she grabbed the boy's shoulder with her free hand on his next circuit. He cringed for a moment, before relaxing and smiling sheepishly when he realized his fellow genin wasn't going to wallop him.

No… Ino was saving that for Gai. Some crimes couldn't go unanswered for.

"I'm glad you're happy training, but you don't need to make a spectacle out of it," The blonde said with a friendly smirk.

"Ah… Maybe you're right, Ino-san," Lee replied, though it was obvious he didn't particularly care how big a fool he made of himself. "Um, those are some… interesting flowers you have there. Are you making a delivery?"

Ino looked at the strange bouquet in her arms. Ah, that's right.

"No, not really. I'm taking them to a friend in the hospital," She said with a shrug.

"Really? Who?" Lee asked curiously.

"Oh, just Uzumaki Naruto."

* * *

Hatake Kakashi had exactly 0.3 seconds to sense an incoming chakra before the most terrible wailing imaginable awoke him from a sound slumber. He raised his forehead protector from his normal eye and took in the sight of Gai's student Rock Lee blubbering incoherently over Naruto's comatose body while Ino stood in the doorway watching in semi-stunned bemusement. The girl looked like she'd been dragged halfway to the hospital by a lunatic. Kakashi's eye drifted back to Lee and made the logical connection.

'Gai, if you don't want to have children I respect that, but that doesn't give you the right to run around Konoha mutating innocent children into evil clones of yourself.'

Ino tried to straighten her messy hair out while glaring at the hysterical boy. She gave up when she realized Lee wouldn't notice her even if she was waving around a neon sign that said, "Kakashi rules! Gai drools!" while screaming at the top of her lungs. The genin sighed and walked towards Kakashi's side of the room. The copy-nin watched curiously as she lugged a large object up and set it on the side table while ignoring the wails echoing in the room. Kakashi stared at the vase and its contents before letting out a choked-off laugh.

"Ino-san, that's an interesting selection you made," The jounin said, his eye nearly watering with the effort to restrain his laughter.

"What can I say? A unique present for a unique personality…And fashion sense," Ino replied with a smug look on her face. "Think he'll like it?"

"Like it? He may ask you to marry him," Kakashi replied, while reaching over to straighten a flower that had come loose.

Ino's present was a large vase. It was also a _heavy _vase, as she'd made the mistake of filling it with water _before_ she left her house. It wasn't the vase though that was the source of the jounin's mirth and the stares she'd received walking to the hospital (though Lee could take part of that credit considering he had half-carried her in his mad run to see Naruto.)

Orange. Ino had filled the vase with flowers the same gaudy, tacky orange that Naruto loved so much. She had every kind of flower imaginable in the vase with their only similarity being their color. She had wisely (and correctly) guessed that Naruto didn't know a thing about delicate flower arrangements, so she'd just thrown something of everything in. Ino figured he'd only see the color and the thought behind it, so it wasn't like she'd have to waste time carefully choosing and arranging the bouquet like she would with a customer. The only thing that Ino had put in it that wasn't orange was a single, medium sized sunflower which rested at the top of the bunch. The whole thing was a terrible eyesore, with the magnolias, daises, and lilies all clashing with each other and the cheery sunflower. Nobody sane would be caught dead even _looking_ at it.

Obviously Naruto would love it beyond words.

"Hmm, he might, but I'm not sure I could marry someone with such an awful taste in clothes," Ino replied, swatting Kakashi's hand away from the vase as she did some last minute arrangements. She turned to take a look at Naruto and saw Lee still crying into the boy's bandaged chest. Sweat-drops appeared on both genin and jounin's heads.

"Lee-san. Lee-san! LEE!" Ino yelled trying to get his attention. She glanced at Kakashi. The tall man shrugged.

"I've been dealing with Gai for years. This really isn't that bad," The copy-nin replied.

Ino grumbled something and walked over to the boy to drag him off their fellow genin. Unfortunately, Lee was a hell of a lot stronger than her and his jumpsuit made it hard to get a grip on him. She finally put him in a full-nelson from behind, all the while listening to his wailing.

"Don't worry Naruto! Youth power will save you! Your fires of youth shall never be vanquished! Your springtime shall never wane!"

"Dammit Lee! Get off him before you make his injuries worse!"

Ino had just managed to pull Lee a few feet form the bed (as Kakashi watched with visible amusement) when a booming voice interrupted them.

"Eternal Rival! How can you sit by idly when your wonderful student has been cut low in the prime of his youth!"

Lee spun like a top towards the newcomer, accidentally throwing Ino across the room.

"Oh Gai-sensei!"

"Oh Lee!"

"Oh God…" Kakashi muttered as he pulled his forehead protector down over his exposed eye again. He would avoid watching the beautiful beasts hug if it killed him. Besides, if he leaned back and acted like he was asleep, maybe they'd leave him alone.

Sensei and student were too busy embracing to a sunset background to notice the jounin. Ino wobbly got to her feet and stared at the spectacle in front of her. Was that some sort of gen-jutsu behind them?

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Le-!"

"If you say that one more time, the ANBU will never find your bodies," Ino growled, the malevolent fire in her eyes not related to youth power in any way. The sunset background shattered with the sound of a record being scratched. Lee and Gai separated and coughed nervously, while avoiding eye contact with the sharp-tongued blond in front of them.

"I wish I could copy that," Kakashi commented as he raised his protector long enough to look at the rare phenomenon of Gai being quiet.

Ino only 'humphed' and crossed her arms.

* * *

"So he's really that bad, huh?" Lee quietly said. Ino nodded, briefly glancing over to where Kakashi was involved in a low voiced conversation with Gai. Both genins were sitting on the couch, occasionally looking at the subject of their conversation.

"It seems like he won't be able to fight or do anything again. Not even the Hokage can heal him," She replied sadly.

"Oh…" Lee muttered, his head downcast. He felt for Naruto, he really did. The cold despair he'd experienced when Tsunade-sama had told him he'd have to give up being a shinobi wasn't something he'd wish on anyone, let alone the hyper blond who'd cheered for him. Well, if Naruto believed in him when his future was uncertain, then he'd do the same in return. Besides, he'd never known anyone who could get up after being beaten down so often like the fuzzy-haired genin. It was just a matter of time.

Ino didn't look too convinced when he voiced his opinion to her.

"Yeah, but he doesn't have any muscles left. Even if he does get better, he's set back years. You think he can really recover from that?" She asked skeptically.

"Of course! You should have seen him after his fight with Sasuke. He bounced back from that and he'll bounce back from this! He's at least as tough as me and I made a full recovery, so don't worry too much about it Ino-san," Lee replied, giving a more subdued version of his nice guy pose. Ino smiled without any sarcasm at the boy. Maybe she'd take back most of the nasty mental comments she'd made about him earlier.

Of course, then he had to go and ruin the mood.

"And if Naruto doesn't make a full recovery, then I'll do ten thousand push-ups while standing on my hands! Five for me and an extra five for him!" Lee declared.

"Yosh! And if Lee can't do ten thousand hand-stand push-ups, then I'll run to the Hidden Sand and back in two days!" Gai said, jumping to his feet. A large sweat-drop appeared at the side of Kakashi's head as he tried to convince himself that he didn't know this man.

"And if Gai-sensei can't make the run in time, I'll carve Naruto's face on the Hokage Monument!" Lee yelled, also jumping to his feet and clenching his fist in triumph. Ino covered her face with her hands.

"And if Lee is arrested by the ANBU before he can finish, I'll break him out of jail with a boulder tied to my back!" Gai announced.

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Kami-sama…" Ino muttered.

* * *

Ino stretched out on the couch in Naruto's hospital room, idly reading a scroll she had picked up from her house earlier. It wasn't very late in the day, still only around three or four, so she didn't feel like going home yet. Gai had mentioned that Tsunade would drop by again early in the evening to do a check-up and Ino wanted to be present and ask the Legendary medic some questions. She glanced up at the clock, then to Naruto's still form, and over to Kakashi silently snoozing in his chair. The only sound was the rustle of paper and the light beeping of the heart monitor.

'Ahhhh…' Ino thought, savoring the absence of the bowl-cuts. Lee had wanted to stay, but Kakashi had suggested that he go and alert the rest of their circle to Naruto's present condition. The boy had taken that as a personal quest and rushed from the room in search of the assorted genin and chuunin. Some of them were probably on missions right now, so it would be awhile before he returned. Gai also had a mission (that he'd held up because he'd taken off when he heard the news) and he'd vacated soon after his prize student left. In the blessed silence that followed their absence, Kakashi had dozed off again. He did wake up long enough to thank Ino when she scrounged up another crutch for him, but he was out again before she even sat back down on the couch.

'Chakra depletion is nothing to laugh at,' The blonde thought. She really didn't know, having never totally burned herself out of chakra. Then again, she was usually cautious about it since she lacked the large reserves that people like Naruto seemed to have in spades. Well, _had_. Who knew what long term damage had been done to him? Anyways, after seeing Kakashi's exhaustion and the effects it had on him, Ino had been curious enough to dig up a couple of her old scrolls from her academy days. She had done well on the exams, but some of the basic knowledge had slipped over the years as an active genin. She figured refreshing her memory might help her find her niche. Her near fight earlier with her rival had rubbed at least one point in. She was weaker than everyone else and it was about damn time she did something about.

Ino envied Sakura and the other chuunins not only for their superior strength and rank, but also because each of them seemed to have something that felt _right_. Each had a certain style or a combination of abilities and knowledge that fit them perfectly. Sakura had her medical skills and a good talent in gen-jutsu, Neji had the Byakugan and all the Hyuuga techniques, Hinata also bore the Hyuuga Bloodline and had medical talent as well, Ten-ten had her weapons, that Shino guy could do all sorts of things with his bugs, hell her own teammate Shikamaru had his family's jutsu and his powerful mind, and her other teammate Chouji had all of his family skills to work with.

Even among those still genin everyone had something that they did well and suited them. Kiba had his dual style of fighting with his dog, Lee knew more advanced tai-jutsu thannine out often jounins, and even the traitor Sasuke had the Sharingan. The only person who didn't have a specialization besides Ino was Naruto. He didn't excel in tai-jutsu or gen-jutsu, nor did he know many nin-jutsu (though what nin-jutsu he _did_ know were very powerful.) Then again, that also seemed to suit him. Naruto held no specialization, so he played the wild card role very well. His main skill, the Kage Bunshin, granted him incredible adaptability and let him go anywhere he needed to in a fight. He had his niche. Ino still didn't have hers.

Looking over her scroll and the generalized paths to take as a shinobi, Ino still couldn't find something to suit her. Her family's jutsu was only useful in conjunction with the Nara and Akimichi techniques. Not only did that limit her in a one-on-one fight or a solo mission, but she had never worked well with Shikamaru and Chouji to begin with. Even those two, despite being best friends, didn't work seamlessly together. Part of the problem was that their team had been forced together by their parents, who had all been on the same team in their genin days. Though the InoShikaCho formation had worked exceptionally for them, it hadn't served their children very well. So her family's skill was a bust. Well…the Shintenshin was out, though there might be more that she'd yet to learn. Her father had an incredibly powerful jutsu that let him take over enemy minds from a distance, but he had yet to teach it to her, much to her annoyance. Whenever she asked, he always made up some excuse and changed the topic.

Still, there might be more that even he didn't know.

Ino had a strange feeling there was far more to her family than just a couple abilities, but her father had never mentioned it nor had he demonstrated any other mental skill. Part of her curiosity was the strange, foreboding dreams she had occasionally. Though she hadn't realized it at the time, the reason she had run to the hospital earlier this morning was the dream she'd had the night before. Both the wobbly feeling and the smell of blood had actually happened to her. Perhaps it was foresight of some sort. Or maybe not. She _could_ have been seeing the events as they were happening. Naruto would have been attacked sometime while she was asleep after all. What if she could develop her family skill into a full-blown Bloodline Limit?

But what could Ino use it with? It's all well and good to be able to brag you have a Bloodline, but unless you had other skills to back it up, the Limit would be useless. The Byakugan was just a built in telescope without the Hyuuga fighting style to back it. Hell, even the Sharingan couldn't actually teach you how to fight, no matter how many skills you copied. So what could she merge with a potential psychic ability?

Well, using the Limit with nin-jutsu wouldn't really be helpful unless you were countering your opponent. Tai-jutsu… Well, on the surface it didn't seem like it would mesh well, but if you could somehow read your opponent's mind and anticipate their next move, you could dominate an enemy, even if they were stronger than you. Although tai-jutsu wasn't much good if your body lacked the talent for it. Ino ruefully looked at her thin arms and legs. What good was sensing your opponent's next move if you couldn't move fast enough to dodge it? Even if she was psychic, it wouldn't do a thing against someone like Lee. That left either ninja tools or gen-jutsu. Ino was uncomfortable relying too heavily on a weapon or a tool of some sort. Kiba was an example of over-depending on a tool. He relied on the soldier pills to pull off his best maneuvers with Akimaru and that hadn't gotten him far against Naruto or that Sound-nin he fought on the Sasuke recapture mission. So that left gen-jutsu.

Ino stared long and hard at the kanji for 'gen' on the scroll in front of her. Perhaps…Gen-jutsu was often overlooked by younger shinobi, but in the right hands it was deadly even to experienced jounins. Granted, that was usually only if someone was caught by the illusion. A psychic ability might be able to entrap an opponent with ease _and_ make the illusion itself far more intense. It would also be a total bitch to break out of. Yes, that felt… right.

Ino stood and quietly walked to the cabinets on the far side of the room. It took a little while, but she managed to find a thin brush and an inkwell to use. The genin glanced at Kakashi, who apparently slept with both eyes covered. The jounin hadn't even flinched when passed him. He slept like most ninja, deeply and quickly, but able to rouse themselves at a moment's notice when a threat was detected. Her movements wouldn't disturb him unless she was standing above him with a scalpel or something. Watching the dozing copy-nin, Ino's resolve only increased. Remaining aware of the surrounding environment while sleeping was a little thing to a ninja of Kakashi's caliber, but it was something Ino had yet to even brush. Even if he did have over a decade more experience than her, it was still a reminder that she wasn't at the level she wanted or _needed_ to be at.

Ino sat on the couch with her legs stretched out in front of her. She carefully propped the inkwell on the armrest next to her and spread the scroll out on her lap. She found a large blank space after the gen-jutsu section and dunked the brush in the ink. Carefully, she drew out a pentagon and added five lines that ran from each point to the center. She leaned back and blew on the ink to dry it. It wasn't perfect, but it was a reasonable rendition of the cards that gray-haired guy with the glasses had shown them at their first chuunin exam. She frowned slightly. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen him at any of the other exams, even though she knew he had failed again. Ino shrugged, brushing the thought off. It wasn't her business if Four-Eyes quit being a ninja (she hadn't even bothered to learn his name.)

Like Four-Eye's cards, she put a careful kanji mark outside each point: nin, gen, tai, tool, and blood. First of course was the gen-jutsu specialty she wanted to develop. She shaded the gen point all the way. Even if she never became a gen-jutsu master, it was good to have a high goal to work towards. Naruto wanted to be Hokage, but even if he never did he could still end up as high as ANBU Commander or something (though she doubted Naruto would _ever_ settle and he'd likely make life a complete and utter hell for whoever got the Hokage title over him.) Even if she never pulled it off, it would be good to at least train like she intended to be a master. Ino skipped over tools entirely, and marked about a quarter of the way up on tai and halfway up on nin. As far as she knew, even the best gen-jutsu couldn't totally defeat an opponent, so she would need to have other skills to rely on. She'd never be able to compare even to the other genins of their group in those fields, but they were necessary skills to have if she wanted to survive in the shinobi world. Eyeing the diagram, her attention fell to the point marked 'blood.'

Ino sighed and drew a small question mark there. Of course, all of this assumed that she even had a Bloodline Limit to awaken. Even if she did, the odds weren't exactly in her favor that it would be what she wanted. Her weird dreams could be just that: weird dreams. They seemed real enough, but did she know for sure? They could just be a side-effect of the Shintenshin, like she'd originally thought. And of course, if she _did_ have a Bloodline Limit and it _was_ a useful psychic ability, she didn't know any way of awakening it. It was unlikely that she'd just be walking along one day and have blaze to life in her head.

Ino set the brush and inkwell on the floor and leaned back further on the couch. What on earth could she do to awaken a Bloodline? If she was honest with herself, _any_ Limit would be welcome, even if it wasn't one she expected. Who could she ask? The Nara and Akimichi clans had family styles of fighting, but they weren't Bloodlines, so she couldn't ask Shikamaru and Chouji's dads for help. Her own father was the same scenario and she wasn't really close enough to him anyways. The Aburame clan had a Bloodline, but it was more like a permanent summoning contract than a Limit. The Hyuuga clan was a good choice, except none of the members had to actually awaken the Byakugan. They all had it, at least to a certain degree. Now the Uchiha clan might have been helpful as the Sharingan needed to be activated (she knew that much from her Sasuke fan-girl days), except the whole lot of them were either dead or traitors.

…But, speaking of the Sharingan…

Ino looked up at the snoozing Kakashi. She weighed the pros and cons of bothering him about this. Despite his lazy attitude, the copy-nin was a busy man normally. Their shared concern over Naruto was the only real connection they had to each other. Ino already had a sensei (even if he sucked at teaching) and Kakashi had other things to attend to. It really wasn't her place to impose on the man. Although… As long as he was down with chakra depletion, he probably wouldn't mind answering a few questions about Bloodlines. Maybe she could even weasel out how he got the Sharingan without being an Uchiha. Well, she'd save that for _after_ he answered her questions, in case it was a sensitive subject (which it probably was considering he'd never told anyone about it.) For now the genin would let him sleep though. The man was exhausted after all and it would be pretty rude of her to wake him up (read: she didn't want to piss him off and never get her questions answered.) Nah, she'd bug Kakashi about it later.

Setting her scroll to one side, Ino stood and stretched her back. Looking around the spacey room, the genin idly noted that Tsunade was doing something nice with Konoha's medical program. The room was large, at least twenty by fifteen feet and was well stocked with the usual set of counters, cupboards, sink, and large bathroom (for a hospital anyways.) A large window ran the length of Naruto's bed and he would have great view of the trees outside whenever he got around to waking up. Naruto's actual bed was one of those fancy mechanical things that could raise, lower, and change shape with the push of a button. It was currently in a slightly raised position, so the boy looked like he was reclining. There was the couch she'd been sitting on (which she discovered was actually a small foldout bed when she dropped her scroll in between the cushions earlier) and also several light-weight, reclining chairs that looked cheap, but seemed to be pretty comfortable.

Kakashi's steady slumber implied a moderate level of comfort, at least.

There were even a few tasteful modern lamps scattered about that could be used instead of the harsher fluorescent lights. All in all, pretty nice for an IC room. Although, she had yet to see a single nurse come in. Didn't someone so heavily injured need to have constant supervision? The boy had nearly died about twelve hours ago. If she was on the nursing staff, she'd be pretty damn worried about his status.

A frown marred her pretty features as Ino walked to the side of Naruto's bed closest to the window. Damn… What little she could see of his face was white as his hospital sheet. The boy was pale and sweaty, as though suffering a fever. Naruto's face twitched slightly, a faint grimace of pain apparent even through his bandages. Without realizing what she was doing, Ino reached out and brushed at the tufts of hair that stuck out from the gauze strips. The texture surprised her as her fingers ran through the blonde mess. Fuzz-ball indeed. The golden blonde strands felt fuzzy and soft, yet had a subtle coarseness to them. It was oddly familiar, yet weird, like it shouldn't be on a human.

What the heck did it remind her of?

A memory came to her, one of a young cat that she'd brought home once. The kitten's fur had been soft and coarse at the same time, similar to Naruto's, though his felt far less downy. Fur…Naruto's hair felt like soft animal fur. How strange. The genin gently rubbed a tuft between her thumb and forefinger, liking the feel of it. Though, it did annoy her that a boy had better hair than hers naturally, when she used half a dozen products on her own lemon blonde locks at home. It suddenly occurred to Ino that she was standing over a near-stranger's bed playing with his hair and anyone could walk in the door.

Or worse, Kakashi could wake up.

Ino withdrew her hand with a sigh. Not really wanting to sit back down, the genin settled for leaning against the plastic rail on the side of the bed. What the hell was she doing? Why was she even here?

'I don't even know you…' The genin thought, staring at the unconscious boy's face. 'Why the hell do I even care? I made a fool of myself running around today, fought with my parents and my best friend, and had to deal with the creepy bowl-cut squad all because you decided to come back to town.'

The dream had spurred Ino into chasing after Naruto the first time. She'd waited three hours because she had to know if he'd live after seeing how terrible his injuries were. She could have left after leaving Kakashi here as his former-sensei/current-guard, but why didn't she? Why did she get him flowers that she knew he would love? Why did she even come back at all?

**_Dead-Last._**

Damn, that might be it. Sakura had managed to set _that_ part of Ino's personality off. It burned like hell to see the medic brush off a teammate like he was a mere acquaintance rather than a comrade that had always stood by her. Ino had her problems with Shikamaru and Chouji, but one thing they always did was stick with each other. They might not work well together and they might argue all the time, but they _always_ cared about each other. Even when she thought Shikamaru was a useless bum and Chouji a fat idiot, she never turned her back on them if they were in trouble. To see Sakura act like that… Well, it made her furious to see her dismiss a comrade. It just wasn't _right_ to blow off someone who'd saved your life. Sakura would have run people over in her rush to see Sasuke, even after all the shit he put the Rookie 9 through. And people thought Ino was the shallow one. The genin sighed out loud, relaxing her suddenly clenched hands.

…Sakura.

Perhaps Sakura herself was part of this little riddle. All her life Ino found things other people ignored or dismissed as useless, cleaned them up, and showed them off. Maybe it was a rebellion from being her parents' little girl or maybe she just liked showing people up. Whatever the reason, every now and then she'd bring home another piece of junk (as her mother called it) and spend weeks fiddling with it. Broken toys, ripped up old scrolls, rusty kunai, stray cats and dogs (though her parents always took those to the Inuzuka vet office/pound after she brought them home)…You name it, she found it and fixed it. Strangely, almost everything thing that caught her eye turned out to be a diamond in the rough.

One dog she brought home turned out to be a rare pedigree after she'd given it a bath. Kiba's mother had even paid her a decent fee for the animal when her parents made her give it up. A scroll she cleaned and patched up turned out to have part of a forgotten tai-jutsu style on it. It wasn't useful to her, but she'd shown it to Iruka-sensei and he'd been delighted. He had taken her to show it to the Sandaime himself and the kind old man had been so impressed with the repair job that he asked her to seriously consider restoration as a side job in the future. The only part of her hobby that she disliked was that almost everything she'd ever fixed up wound up with someone else, either through her parents or because someone else would make better use of it. She wasn't allowed to keep the stray animals, the kunai and scrolls went to other ninja, and the other odds and ends were usually given to her friends. She had finally tried to break the cycle when she met Sakura.

Sakura… She'd been Ino's gamble. Just once she had wanted something for herself. The skills she learned at school and from her parents were nice, but they were _given_ to her. Birthday presents, odd gifts, love letters and Valentines… Just stuff was just handed to her. Ino had kept looking for something she could play a part in making and keep that for herself. She had hoped it would be Sakura. When Ino first laid eyes on her, she didn't see tears, dirt, and snot… She saw beautiful pale skin, bright green eyes, and sugary-pink hair that she half expected to smell like cotton candy or bubblegum. Sakura was the prettiest flower Ino had ever seen in her life, even when the girl was bawling her eyes out.

So Ino had given her a ribbon and became her friend, while spending most of her academy days building the girl's confidence. She wanted Sakura to become even more beautiful and she'd figured getting the girl to believe in herself and become a strong kunoichi would help. Part of her was jubilant that she'd cleaned off Sakura's crusty exterior and revealed just how beautiful she really was for the world to see. Part of Ino wanted to keep the pale girl locked up forever, so nobody would ever steal her away. And another part of her was just happy to have someone close to her. Then Ino got a crush on Sasuke and warbled on about him to his other fan-girls, forgetting that she had someone far more beautiful already. Then Sakura got a crush on Sasuke too. That made Ino nervous, but she didn't really think much of it because at the time she figured only an idiot wouldn't like Sasuke. And then came one of the most painful days in her life. Sakura gave back the ribbon and walked away.

Ino hadn't stopped her.

It was Sakura's choice after all. Even though it hurt like hell, Ino didn't fight it. Sakura was just one more thing that would never belong to her. The pain from that day still burned her though. Their early rivalry had sprung from Ino's resentment and Sakura's urge to prove herself to Sasuke. The blonde girl had accepted over time that not only was Sakura not hers, but she was never going to be. Unfortunately, Ino's feelings hadn't gone away over the years. They had merely changed from a child's admiration to a teenager's desire. It didn't help that Sakura's beauty grew almost daily. In the end though, it didn't really matter. Sakura had walked away from her and she seriously doubted the girl would suddenly drop to her knees in front of her and declare her undying love. And if Ino was honest with herself, she could admit that it was probably for the best. Sakura could be a real bitch sometimes and having two in the same relationship was just asking for trouble.

Ino had stopped her hobby after Sakura, not wanting to go through that pain _ever_ again. But when Sakura had called Naruto 'Dead-last' and dismissed him like nothing, Ino had felt the old urge come back. She could see how the boy would set it off. The fuzz-ball fit her mold almost perfectly.

Naruto was the poster boy for diamond in the rough. On the surface he was a near worthless idiot, who made stupid boasts and dumb mistakes. He was rude, ignorant, and had a fashion sense that could make a clothing designer commit suicide. But that was just the surface. Underneath was a ninja who was insanely dedicated, had raw potential out the ass, and cared a lot about other people. The last part sounded corny, but it was true. Ino hadn't lied when she said Naruto would die for his friends. The boy wouldn't even hesitate. Ino barely knew him, but the hyper genin just seemed like the person to fight for other people and not budge an inch. Underneath his idiotic exterior, Naruto was the embodiment of every major trait a Hokage should have. More than that, he was a good person and would grow into a good man. Very, _very_ few people saw that. Naruto fit the profile for every single thing that Ino had ever claimed before. It was perfect.

…Except for one detail.

Naruto didn't need Ino. Everything else that she had ever fixed up (Sakura especially) would have withered away without her. Each trinket, animal, and person had needed Ino, even if only for a little while. Naruto didn't. The hyper boy was growing just fine without her. Hell, he grew just fine without anyone. He grew _better_ with other people and he treasured them above _everything_ else, but in the end he'd survive and flourish by himself. He was like a tree seedling slowly forcing its way up through pavement. Ino didn't want to interfere with that. She couldn't clean off Naruto's exterior like she had with Sakura. There was nothing about him that she could improve that wouldn't change naturally with age and experience.

Something about him still called to her, though. He didn't need her, but if she were brutally honest then maybe that's what _she_ needed. Someone who could be an equal. Neither given to her nor made by her, but still near her. Not necessarily as a boyfriend or a comrade (though she wasn't really adverse to either possibility), but just someone to be around. A friend. Was that why she was here? Did she want that? Did Naruto offer something Shikamaru, Chouji, and Sakura didn't? Ino honestly didn't know.

She did want to find out though.

Perhaps that was why. Naruto was a possibility, of what she wasn't sure. Maybe she wanted to change this part of her life as much as she wanted to change her fighting style. Maybe…Maybe she wanted to take another gamble. For all she knew, Naruto could wake up the next day, thank her for the flowers, and forget all about her. But maybe he wouldn't. Ino still didn't know much about him, but one thing she did know for certain was that Naruto had a way of surprising the hell out of people.

She doubted she'd be an exception.

Ino shook her head out of her daze. Glancing up at the clock, she was surprised to note that she had been standing beside the boy for almost forty minutes. It was getting late and she was getting hungry. Not to mention the Hokage would be here soon and she'd better wake Kakashi up.

The genin walked around the bed and towards the still sleeping copy-nin. Not surprisingly, the jounin moved almost the instant Ino touched his shoulder. Kakashi lazily stretched for a long moment, before sliding his forehead protector up from his right eye.

"Ah… Ino-san. What's the problem?" He drawled out in a relaxed voice.

"Nothing. I just thought you might want to be awake when the Hokage shows up," Ino replied, standing up straight. The jounin nodded.

"Yes, I would. Thanks, you probably saved me from getting my head pounded," Kakashi said with a cheerful, upturned eye.

Ino snorted at the sight and walked over towards the bathroom door.

"You better not fall asleep again," She growled.

"Hai, hai," The copy-nin replied, looking around the room to find something to do while he waited for Tsunade to show up.

Ino shrugged and closed the door to take care of business. She closed it moments before Kakashi's eye fell on the opened scroll on the couch.

A few minutes later, Ino stepped out of the bathroom while still drying her hands with a paper towel. She nearly dropped it in surprise when she saw the Copy-Ninja calmly reading through her scroll in his chair. The genin's lip curled in annoyance. Stupid curious jounins.

"Hey, you mind not reading that? That happens to be mine, you know," She snapped, tossing her crumpled paper towel in the garbage can.

"Hmm… You say something Ino-san?" Kakashi replied as he glanced up at her.

Ino's vision turned red and she cracked her knuckles. She was two seconds from demonstrating just what happened to rude ninjas who snooped through her things, when the door opened.

"-be sure to keep the wall patrols alert," Tsunade was saying to an ANBU behind her. The ANBU replied something inaudible, to which the Hokage nodded, before the ninja walked away. The Godaime opened the door further and walked in with Shizune. She glanced at Kakashi and Ino a moment before moving to Naruto to check him over.

"How's he been?" Tsunade asked. Kakashi ignored the question, still glancing over the pilfered scroll.

"The same, I guess. I don't really know," Ino answered when she saw that the copy-nin wasn't going to reply. Tsunade's hands glowed as she ran a diagnostic jutsu over Naruto's prone form.

"Did the nurses mention anything?" She asked, not really expecting a change in the boy's condition so soon.

"Uh, what nurses?" The genin asked, not really sure how to answer.

"The ones that came in every twenty minutes," Tsunade said, looking up at the girl with a hint of annoyance on her face.

Ino glanced over to Kakashi a moment, before looking back at the Godaime. She cautiously answered, "Hokage-sama, no one's come in here all day except for Lee-san and Gai-sensei."

"What?" The Sannin asked, rather incredulously. She gave Kakashi a sharp look, "Is this true?"

"No one's been in here aside from myself, Ino-san, and those two," The copy-nin lazily answered. He had taken out a small brush and was writing something on the scroll. He had yet to look up at anyone in the room.

Tsunade stared at him for a moment, before storming over to the foot of the bed. It moved a couple feet to the side as she forcefully ripped the chart off of it. She glared at it and flipped through several pages. Finally she tore the pages off the metal backing and shoved them into one of her robe's large pockets.

"I'll be dealing with this soon," The Godaime growled, looking every bit the Legendary Sannin infamous for her temper. Shizune gave a little shudder at the thought of what was in store for the nurses who'd deliberately ignored the Kyuubi-vessel. Despite the cold shiver crawling up her spine, the dark-haired medic found very little sympathy for such unprofessional conduct. Social stigma had no place in a hospital, _especially_ in an IC ward.

"Uh, Hokage-sama…?" Ino asked hesitantly. Now she knew why Sakura looked like a nervous wreck after some training sessions.

"Yes?" Tsunade said, looking over at the slim blonde girl. A hint of familiarity flickered through her eyes. "You're the Yamanakas' girl, right?"

"Yeah," Ino replied, the flare of annoyance at being the daughter of a famous clan killing her nervousness.

"What is it?" The Hokage asked, moving over to the monitoring machines next to the bed.

"Naruto… Is he going to be…?" The genin asked.

Tsunade sighed and glanced over at the smaller blonde.

"I assume Kakashi gave you the details?" She said.

"Just in general. He couldn't give me the specifics," Ino replied. The copy-nin in question didn't even blink when his name was mentioned. He was still scribbling something down on the scroll he'd swiped.

"I see…" Tsunade stared at the girl, as if sizing her up. Ino shifted a little, but otherwise didn't break eye contact (which took all her willpower considering she was facing a Sannin.) "Alright, I guess you want the full diagnosis, huh? I'll tell you, but only on the condition that you _don't _let it get out to any of your friends aside from Sakura. She'll find out from reading his chart anyways, so it doesn't really matter."

When Ino nodded, Tsunade gave her the full list of Naruto's injuries, being careful to exclude any direct mention of the Kyuubi. After the medic finished, the genin was silent for several moments in shock over the damage Naruto had taken. She forced her stupor away in favor of asking, "But, Hokage-sama, isn't there anything you can do? I mean, you're a Legendary! You even helped Lee-san and no one could do anything for him!"

A dark look crossed Tsunade's face, but it wasn't one of anger. The tall woman moved to sit on the edge of Naruto's bed, as she pondered what to say.

"Naruto's injuries are both better and worse than Lee's were. Lee's life was constantly at risk with the damage to his spine, while Naruto's life isn't in danger from his muscular destruction. On the other hand, Lee could at least walk around. Naruto will be lucky if he can ever lift a pair of chopsticks again. Beyond that, with Lee all I had to do was remove the bone fragments. With Naruto I'd have to rebuild his entire muscle network. That would mean regenerating from scratch. There isn't a known jutsu on the continent that can do that. There is very little I can do for him," The Legendary medic lectured.

Ino frowned a little in thought.

"What _you_ can do for him? What's that mean? Somebody else can help him?"

"In a sense," Tsunade muttered, looking towards Naruto's abdomen. Louder, she replied, "Naruto has a certain… ability. His body has an accelerated healing factor that normally repairs virtually all damage to him."

"Really?" Ino said, surprise and hope coming over her face. "A Bloodline Limit? How powerful is it?"

Tsunade shook her head as she said, "Not an actual Limit. His body is just… different from other people. As for how powerful it is, when I debriefed and checked him over after Sasuke's defection he mentioned that the Uchiha-brat had rammed his entire hand through his chest with a Chidori. It punctured and burned through his right lung, but he was able to regenerate it entirely in a minute. When I checked the spot, he didn't have scar or any sort of internal damage to that area at all. Even his cells had no traces of genetic damage like normal fast-healing would leave. Not only that, but he didn't have a scar _anywhere_ on his body, even though he'd been on active duty for almost half a year."

_That_ not only got Ino's attention, but Kakashi's as well. When he'd brought back Naruto all he had seen were chakra burns all over the boy's body. There wasn't any trace of being directly hit with a Chidori, so he'd assumed that Sasuke had just beaten the crap out of him. That meant he'd vastly underestimated _both_ his students. The Kyuubi's influence on Naruto's body was far greater than he'd originally thought and Sasuke had fallen much farther than he'd dared to think. Kakashi had originally thought that Sasuke was merely being foolish in his blind pursuit of power and had been seduced by Orochimaru's offers, but to use an assassination technique on his closest friend and comrade changed that perspective.

'**_The Chidori can't be used to merely stun or immobilize an opponent. It can only do critical levels of damage.' _**

Hadn't that been part of his own lesson to the dark-haired boy when he'd taught him the technique? If Sasuke had used that jutsu on Naruto, it could only be a deliberate attempt to kill. He should've read the goddamn reports instead of foolishly assuming he knew what had happened. Being a genius was good in combat, but it also led to arrogance that led to _very_ foolish mistakes.

'You fucked up big time, Hatake,' Kakashi angrily thought to himself. 'Not only did you get on the 'Poor Little Uchiha' bandwagon, but you also taught him a B Rank assassination technique that he tried to kill his best friend with! _And_ since you assumed Sasuke would never use it against a friend, you never taught Naruto a counter and he nearly got killed because of it. Nice, genius, nice…'

While Kakashi was berating himself, Ino was staring at Tsunade with a hopeful expression.

"So he'll be up in no time right? If he can regrow part of a lung, then his muscles should…" The genin trailed off as the Hokage shook her head.

"It's not that easy. This is much worse than just a lung. The Chidori wound was externally inflicted damage. Naruto's muscles have atrophied as a side-effect of his healing factor overcompensating for blood production. That changes things," The Sannin replied.

Ino stared at her blankly. She wasn't dumb, but medical talk tended to go over her head. Fortunately, Shizune was listening in right behind her and noticed her confusion.

"What she means is when he was hit with the Chidori, Naruto-kun's body recognized it as an outside threat and dealt with it as such. Atrophy, on the other hand, is the body strip-mining itself to keep from dying. Naruto-kun's healing factor might not repair the damage if it came from the inside," The dark-haired medic explained as she put a comforting hand on Ino's shoulder.

"Oh…" The genin's voice sounded very small and disappointed.

"This is assuming his healing factor even works," Tsunade grumbled. "He seems to heal faster when actively using chakra, so I would normally try outside chakra stimulation with a jutsu or acupuncture, but it wouldn't do any good with his inner coils so screwed up. Right now, he can barely keep enough energy flowing to stay alive let alone regenerate."

"I see," Ino quietly said. There was a long silence that stretched out uncomfortably. Tsunade looked towards Naruto again to distract herself when something occurred to her.

"Where's his necklace?" She asked (though it came out more like a demand.) Ino watched in confusion as Shizune suddenly moved passed her. Necklace?

"Oh, I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama. Here it is," The dark-haired medic said as she pulled out a leather string with a very pretty green stone on the end of it. "I took it when Jiraiya-sama brought him in. It was… dirty, so I wanted to clean it off before he wore it again."

"Oh… Thank you, Shizune-kun," Tsunade replied, her anger noticeably calming. Both Ino and Kakashi watched curiously as the medic handed the necklace to the Hokage. Tsunade carefully leaned Naruto's head forward and put the leather string around his neck, then eased his head back again. Ino tried to picture the boy without the bandages and had to admit the necklace would look good on him. A slight gasp to her side made her look over at the copy-nin.

"Hokage-sama, isn't that…?" Kakashi asked, his eye noticeably wider. It had taken him several moments before he recognized the jewelry.

"Yes. My grandfather's necklace," Tsunade answered, still leaning over the boy. Her hand gently stroked the tuft of hair exposed.

"Huh? Who's your grandfather?" Ino asked in confusion. It was really annoying to be the only ignorant one here.

"The Shodai. The First Hokage of the Leaf. That stone is rumored to be worth enough to buy several mountains," Kakashi answered. He gave the Fifth a hard look. "For you to give that to a genin…"

"I made a bet with Naruto and I lost," Tsunade answered in a stiff voice. Her glare would have made Kakashi flinched if his body wasn't moving so sluggishly. "Besides, it has absolutely nothing to do with you, Hatake-san. Mind your own business."

After a tense moment of silence, Ino asked, "Uh, what was the bet? It must have been something big."

Tsunade turned away from the copy-nin and back to Naruto. For a long moment it seemed like she wouldn't answer. Ino was just about to apologize for being so forward, when the Sannin spoke.

"When Jiraiya and Naruto found Shizune and me on their trip to recruit me as the Fifth, Naruto was a few days into learning a powerful move called Rasengan. We got into a fight and he tried to use an imperfect version on me. Obviously it failed. I made a bet with him that he couldn't master it in a week. On the seventh day after that, we fought Orochimaru and one of his flunkies. Not only did Naruto pull off a completed version of the move, but he also did it while saving my life and defeated an Elite Jounin level ninja in the process. I gave the necklace to him afterwards," Tsunade said. A painful, dark look grew in her eyes. "He certainly earned it."

"A _week_!" Kakashi exclaimed, his voice choked with disbelief. "Are you serious! How were you sure it was a perfect Rasengan!"

Tsunade gave the Copy-Ninja a wicked grin that made the jounin's insides squirm unpleasantly.

"It worked on Kabuto just fine," She smirked, knowing Kakashi himself had a couple rough encounters with the Sound-nin before.

"Kabuto…?" The jounin's eye widened even further. Naruto had beaten _Kabuto_!

"Yes, though I'm sorry to say he survived… Barely," The Hokage answered. "He was able to use chakra to buffer some of the initial impact. It still threw him forty feet into a boulder and even his medical jutsu couldn't entirely heal the damage the Rasengan did to his body. I figured nearly killing a ninja of your caliber meant the move was mastered. Looks like you made the same mistake as old Sarutobi."

Kakashi's head lowered and he stared into his scroll covered lap. Naruto had mastered the Rasengan in a _week_? Damn… He hadn't even thought to ask Jiraiya-sama about it. Then again, he seemed to have done a lot of 'not thinking' since Team 7 formed. For a genius, he was sloppy. He'd assumed Sasuke was just like him, with the Sharingan and being brilliant at combat. It had taken Sasuke only a day to learn the Chidori, but that wasn't really an accurate measurement. Kakashi had made the seals, powered up the jutsu, and shattered a boulder with it while Sasuke copied his every move with the Sharingan. Naruto couldn't copy jutsu. Even if he could, the Rasengan itself couldn't be copied. It had no seals and there was a specific training process that had to be completed before it could be used. One had to work _hard_ to learn it. Even Jiraiya-sama had needed several weeks to learn it from his own student. For Naruto to have mastered such a powerful and difficult technique in a _week_ and to have beaten a ninja arguably as strong as the Copy-Ninja himself spoke volumes about the boy's potential.

Potential Kakashi had ignored in favor of his other student.

Tsunade's words hit home, though the Copy-Ninja gave no external reaction. He had blatantly favored Sasuke over Naruto during the exams, even if he had tried to get him a different tutor. What's worse, he had the gall to criticize Jiraiya because he had taught the boy a move that was stronger than Sasuke's. Sarutobi had made a similar line of mistakes when he'd favored Orochimaru over Jiraiya, just because the Snake Sannin had better natural talent than the Frog Sannin. Kakashi had repeated that error, even after Sasuke was infected with a seal designed to make someone even more power hungry.

The copy-nin let his head droop some more. He hadn't even apologized for it either. Hell, he'd barely talked to Naruto since the chuunin exams. He should've taught both of them equally. Actually, to be fair he should have taught the _three_ of them equally. He had foisted Naruto off on someone else and he'd ignored Sakura entirely. No wonder the two of them had gone off and found other teachers. And Sasuke… Sasuke had taken everything he thought would be useful from the Copy-Ninja, then left to find someone else to give him more power.

Looking back on it, Kakashi wondered how he'd missed the fact that Sasuke was a selfish brat. Or (more accurately) why he'd _ignored_ that fact.

"-of move is it?" Ino's curious voice dragged Kakashi from his thoughts.

"Well, you'd have to ask Jiraiya if you want to know the exact details, but I can tell you it's deadly. _Very_ deadly," Tsunade answered. "The Yondaime spent three years creating it and the effort shows. The Rasengan can be used in several different ways, but its main function is to rip through anyone and anything. It does little surface damage, but internally it shreds and twists like no other jutsu. Only three people have ever learned it and one of them is dead."

"Wow…" Ino said. She'd been right before when she'd assessed the other genin's caliber. Naruto didn't know many moves, but the ones he did know were jaw-dropping. Maybe he could show it to her when he woke up. "What rank is it?"

"A Rank," Tsunade and Kakashi responded at the same time. Ino raised an eyebrow, both at the Rank and the stereo effect.

"So… Why did Jiraiya-sama teach him the Fourth's technique?" The genin asked. Tsunade's expression darkened again.

"I don't know, but probably because Naruto looks like him. Jiraiya taught the Yondaime, so seeing someone with a strong resemblance to him might have inspired him to do it," The Hokage answered. There was another reason, but not even Jiraiya was certain about it. The records around the time of the Kyuubi's assault were sketchy and it would take a great deal of investigation to know for sure. That was time and effort neither of them had to spare. Still, if it was true…

"Well… It's a nice necklace," Ino said, running out of stuff to say. She didn't know Tsunade on any level, so it was hard to come up with something talk about.

"It is," The Godaime's tone was little more than a whisper. "I'm just glad it serves him like it does me, instead of…"

Shizune flinched at that. No one said anything for a long minute as Tsunade shifted her position further up on the bed so she could look at Naruto's face. Her expression held the look of old pain that had never healed. She slowly reached a hand out and rested it on the boy's bandaged forehead.

"I… Could you leave us alone for awhile?" Tsunade quietly asked. There was a hint of command in her voice. Ino blinked. What was going on?

"Sure, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said as he grabbed his crutches and limped out the door. Shizune gently ushered Ino out of the room and closed the door behind her. The last thing the genin saw before it shut was Tsunade leaning over to press her lips to Naruto's bandaged forehead as tears streaked down her face.

"…What's that all about?" Ino asked. Shizune sighed and motioned her to move away from the door. They found Kakashi seated on one of the wall-benches a few rooms down. As the genin sat down next to him, she noticed he was looking over the scroll again. How he'd managed to get it out of the room unrolled and with both hands occupied without crumpling it was a mystery. Shizune glanced up and down the hall to make sure there were no eavesdroppers before she began speaking.

"That stone has a dark history to it," The medic began. Ino and Kakashi looked up, both curious about Tsunade's odd reaction. "You see, it's only served Tsunade-sama. Everyone else who's ever worn it has died soon afterwards. Supposedly, even the First and the Second were wearing it when they were killed. Tsunade-sama gave it to her little brother and he was brutally murdered by an enemy nin the next day. Later on she gave it to her first love and he died only a few days after on a mission. The only other person the stone hasn't harmed is Naruto-kun."

"Oh…" Ino said. What the hell do you say to _that_? Even Kakashi's eye drifted to the floor. Then again, he used to be an ANBU Captain, so he knew first hand what it was like to lose someone close to him. Speaking of closeness…

"Um, not to pry or anything, but what was with…?" Ino trailed off, not really sure how to voice her question.

"You mean why Tsunade-sama is so close to Naruto-kun?" Shizune replied, a bit of life coming back to her face. "Well, I've never seen any pictures, but she told me once that Naruto-kun looks almost exactly like her brother. Even more than that, both her brother and her boyfriend dreamed of becoming a Hokage and I'm sure you know Naruto-kun has the same goal. It gives Tsunade something to hold onto, I think. She's been much happier ever since meeting him."

"Oh, I see," Ino said. "And Naruto? Sakura told me once he called the Fifth a hag to her face."

Shizune laughed a little, "That's just the way the two of them are. They yell and fight constantly, but I think that's how they like it. Naruto-kun has never had any family his whole life. Tsunade-sama fills the role for him like he does for her. They were both very lonely people and having a family means a great deal to them, even if it isn't one of blood. Besides, after saving each other's lives it would be kind of hard not to grow closer."

"I've seen the Hokage punch Naruto through the floor before. _Literally_. If they're family, then they're constantly attempting fratricide on each other," Kakashi commented dryly. Shizune just shrugged, a small smile on her face. Even if the two nearly gave her a heart attack every time they fought, it was still kind of cute to watch.

"Well, we should probably leave her alone for awhile. When she gets like this… It's just best not to disturb her. Naruto-kun's close call probably drug up a bunch of old memories on top of scaring her to death," The medic said, her face losing its cheer. The other two nodded, Kakashi going back to the scroll immediately. His interest finally caught Shizune's attention and she curiously asked, "Hatake-san? What's that you have?"

Ino nearly choked. It was bad enough the stinking Copy-Ninja was vandalizing her stuff, she didn't want the Hokage's assistant poking through it too! Who knew if there was some sort of law about Bloodlines or something? Kakashi might not give a shit, but Shizune looked like she took rules seriously.

"Oh, just something naughty," Kakashi cheerfully said, his eye smiling and a little heart floating above his head. Ino nearly fell to the floor. Why did she even bother?

Shizune sweat-dropped and said, "Hatake-san! Don't read your smut in a hospital, for Kami's sake! I'll have to tell the Hokage if you keep it up."

Kakashi laughed nervously and rolled the scroll up.

"That's not necessary, Shizune-san. I'll be good," He said with another heart floating up.

The medic glared at him, before shaking her head. She looked over to Ino and said, "I'm sorry to leave you with this poor excuse for a man, but I have to go and check on some other patients. I'll see you two later."

"Okay. Bye Shizune-san!" Ino replied, waving as the medic walked off down the hall. As soon as Shizune was out of sight, the genin gave Kakashi one of her death glares.

"If you were writing some sort of porno crap in my scroll…" She trailed off, making a fist. The copy-nin started sweating a bit.

"No, no! I was just making a couple notes," Kakashi said, holding his hands up in defense.

"Hmm, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now, but if I find out you're lying…" Ino held her hand under the jounin's face and loudly cracked one of her fingers.

"Hai, hai… I understand," Kakashi said. Kami-sama, that girl was frightening when she wanted to be. His thoughts were interrupted by his stomach loudly reminding him that not only had he drained all his chakra, but he also hadn't eaten all day.

Ino sighed, feeling her stomach grumble in agreement.

"Let's go to the cafeteria," The genin said. She stood and helped the unsteady copy-nin to his feet. "You can answer a couple questions while we eat."

As the genin and jounin made their way down the hall, neither noticed the flash that ducked further into one of the rooms they passed.

* * *

"Alright, your setup isn't that bad. I would suggest more nin-jutsu and some tool skills though. I am curious… What's with the question mark on the blood point?"

Ino glanced up at Kakashi, amazed that his pork buns were already gone. She herself was only halfway through her miso soup. She'd been idly curious if the man would remove his mask to eat, but it seemed he could ingest food at the speed of sound or something. The two ninjas were sitting at one of the many restaurant styled booths in the large, well lit hospital cafeteria. The place seemed less like an actual cafeteria and more like a large food-court from a mall. It was spacey, clean, and had assorted plants all over the place. There was even a semi-transparent skylight in the ceiling and a large fountain set into one wall. Tsunade was deadly serious when it came to medical funding, it seemed.

They had picked a seat in the less crowded area in the middle of the court, where they could watch the fountain or the different food vendors easily. Ino currently had the scroll spread out in front of her on the table, with her soup and a dango sitting off to the side. Kakashi's notes had turned out to be little tidbits of advice that he'd written in the margin all throughout the scroll. They were actually pretty helpful, with advice on what info was good and what parts were faulty or just plain crap. He had even jotted down the titles of a couple books with good training techniques, the address to a good second-hand scroll/bookstore that specialized in texts on the ninja arts, and the names of a few chuunin and jounin who might train her in their spare time. For a genin with poor experience, it was a gold mine.

"Well… I was thinking about my family's jutsu. You know, the Shintenshin?" Ino said. When Kakashi nodded, indicating that he knew of the technique, the genin continued, "So I've been thinking that it's just a family technique but what if it's part of something more? I've had strange dreams ever since I learned the jutsu and they always seem be…I don't know. Not prophetic or anything, but I see things in them that I later experience in real life. Well, usually anyways."

Kakashi's rested his chin on his steepled hands and narrowed his eye a little in thought.

"So today? With Naruto?"

Ino nodded, her gray eyes darkening in memory.

"I… Last night I had a dream. I still can't remember much of it, but I do remember the ground wobbling and the smell of blood," She said.

"Gamabunta-sama's jumping and Naruto's injuries," Kakashi said, filling in the blanks.

Ino continued, "That's what I figured too. Anyways, I was thinking there's a chance I might have some sort of psychic Bloodline Limit. At least, that's what I hope. In all honesty, I'd settle for a Bloodline period, whatever it might be. I was wondering if you knew how to awaken a Limit, seeing as you have a Sharingan and all. If you don't, or if I don't have one, I was wondering if it's possible to create one."

Kakashi allowed his eye to close as he thought out an appropriate response. Not sensing the silence to be uncomfortable, Ino grabbed her dango and took a bite out of it while looking over the notes in her scroll again. There was a comfortable buzz of conversation in the air as assorted medics, patients, and visitors walked about the cafeteria looking for an early dinner. Kakashi's eye finally opened and focused on the girl in front of him. He took in the sight of a slim, pretty blond who looked more like someone who spent their days at the mall than someone who spent their days figuring out how to kill more efficiently. Ino was calmly munching away, nodding her head in agreement to something she was reading. She didn't seem like the type to take being a ninja seriously, but at the same time he'd seen the traces of her determination and fury up close. She was very much like a quieter, less foolish version of Naruto in that respect. If she really did want to do this…

"Why do you want a Bloodline Limit so badly? For that matter, why all this?" The Copy-Ninja asked as he gestured to the scroll on the table. "Is it to pass the chuunin exam? To beat Sakura? To prove yourself to a boy? Why?"

Ino set what was left of her dango aside and narrowed her eyes at the jounin.

"The long and short of it? I'm weak. I'm at the bottom of the pole compared to the rest of the ninjas my age and while I graduated near the top, everyone else has exceeded me. I've got one special move and that barely works unless it's used with the Nara family jutsu. Teamwork is important, but so is being able to stand on your own two feet. I want to get better and stronger. More than that, I want my own niche and place to fit in. This," She said, pointing at the scroll, "will hopefully be a start to that. A Bloodline would be a powerful asset and would give me a specialty that could be useful. Even without a Limit, maybe with some advanced training I'll be able to at least catch up to my friends while I'm looking for a unique style of my own."

Ino trailed off and watched Kakashi for his reaction. For a long moment he didn't even blink, but a pleased glint seemed to appear in his eye after awhile.

"Not a bad argument. Could be better," The copy-nin casually dodged as Ino chucked a wadded up napkin at him, "But a good start, either way. I _do_ have some knowledge on Bloodline Limits that'll help you, but more than that, I think you need to spend some time researching exactly what you want in a fighting style."

Kakashi reached out and tapped the pentagon on the scroll and said, "Like I said earlier, this is not a bad idea. It needs fine tuning and you shouldn't force yourself to stick to it if you aren't going anywhere, but it's got potential. You understand enough about gen-jutsu to know that you can't over-depend on it. You do need some tai-jutsu training, but with your build it would probably be better to learn more nin-jutsu. I'd say the focus on tai is fine, but mark the nin point up a little more and fill at least a quarter of the tools point. You'll still need to know how to throw a kunai and what the odd object your opponent just pulled out is."

"I left it blank because I didn't want to over-depend on it like-" Ino started, but was cut off when Kakashi interrupted, "-Like Kiba does. Yes, I'm surprised Kurenai-chan allowed him to do that. A tool is supposed to play a supporting role, not a necessary part of the fighting style. Anyways, you should still have some knowledge in that field. I suggest getting a few weapon and tool books to study. A few scrolls on traps would be helpful too, so you can at least identify them. For tai-jutsu, try to get one of your friends to tutor you in it. I'd suggest Lee-kun. He's almost as weird as his teacher, but he's powerful as hell. _No one_ knows more tai-jutsu in Konoha than Maito Gai and that shows in his student. Lee-kun's been training under him for only two and a half years and he went from drop-out to near jounin levels in that time. Just don't let them talk you into wearing one of those god-awful spandex suits, okay?"

"I'd rather melt my eyeballs out with lye than be seen in something like that," Ino deadpanned in a perfectly serious voice. Kakashi replied in an equally serious tone, "Good."

"Anyways," The jounin continued. "As far as gen-jutsu goes, I'd say buy a bunch of scrolls and books on it and mark all the jutsu you want to learn. Then take them to a gen-jutsu specialist and have them train you in it or tell you if you're looking at the wrong skills. On top of that, regularly do exercises that build stamina and chakra control. Don't expect miracles for your chakra reserves, but definitely plan on perfecting your control. Gen-jutsu doesn't rely on control as heavily as medical jutsu does, but it's far more important than having a lot of raw chakra."

Ino had pulled out a normal pen she'd scrounged up from somewhere and was scribbling down additional notes as Kakashi talked. Most of what he was telling her he had already written on the scroll, but it was still helpful to have it in her own words.

"Got it. So what about nin-jutsu?" She asked. At that, Kakashi frowned and scratched his chin.

"Ironically, the best person to tutor your nin-jutsu would be Naruto," He said. Ino dropped her pen in surprise.

"Really? You're serious?" She asked.

Kakashi nodded and continued, "You see, I'm setting this up so your trainers match how far you want to go in a particular field. You want to specialize in gen-jutsu so you'll need a jounin to teach you, while you comrades will be able to improve your nin-jutsu and tai-jutsu, and tools you only need to review. Now, of your comrades the people with the best skills in pure nin-jutsu would either be Naruto or Sasuke, if he hadn't left. Everyone else is specialized in some other area or has their nin-jutsu tied up to their Bloodline or family jutsu. Naruto doesn't know many nin-jutsu, but he learns them fast and is a total stamina freak. If you wanted someone to help you learn a nin-jutsu skill, those are the best qualities in a tutor. Besides, who knows what kind of skills Jiraiya-sama has taught him since they left?"

Ino nodded slowly.

"I get it. But he's totally laid up right now. Who'll teach me in the meantime?"

Kakashi's eye turned into an upside down "U". Ino shook her head in disbelief.

"_You_?"

"Well, I can't spare too much time since the Hokage always has me on missions, but I have more free time now that I don't have a team anymore. Most weekends I'm here in Konoha so we can go over some jutsu and training exercises if you want. Although, you might want to get Asuma's OK first," The Copy-ninja said, leaning back in his seat.

"Pfft," Ino rolled her eyes at _that_ one. "Asuma-sensei's a good fighter, but he barely trains us at all. He spends most of his time playing old man games with Shikamaru and tells us to train on our own. I've been yelling at him for years to take us more seriously. He'll agree just to get away from my nagging."

Kakashi nodded, "Good. We can meet up this Saturday at the Memorial training ground and I can look over your progress so far."

Ino put a finger to her chin in thought and asked, "Why are you willing to train me? We've met like three times before. Not that I don't appreciate the gesture, but I'm curious."

Kakashi stared down at the genin's unfinished soup for several long moments before saying, "I fucked up."

Ino blinked. _That_ wasn't what she was expecting.

"Excuse me?"

The copy-nin met her gray eyes with his obsidian gaze.

"With my team. I screwed up."

The girl thought about it for a long moment before realizing, "Sasuke."

To her surprise, Kakashi shook his head.

"Not just him. I messed up just as bad with Naruto. And Sakura to a lesser degree."

Ino asked, "How so? I mean Sasuke turned traitor, but none of us really saw it coming. And both Naruto and Sakura turned out great."

"Under other sensei," Kakashi replied. He crossed his arms and looked down at the table. "While I gave general training to them all, I focused much more on Sasuke. I made the mistake of just looking at who they were on the outside. Externally, Sasuke was a genius, Sakura was weak, and Naruto was a fool. But I didn't follow my own teachings. My first lesson to them was 'look underneath the underneath.' If I had bothered to look, I would have seen that Sasuke was power-obsessed and riding a vengeance kick, Sakura had excellent chakra control and medical potential, and Naruto…"

As Kakashi's eye closed, Ino filled in the blank.

"Naruto is potential incarnate."

The Copy-Ninja gave a painful nod and continued, "At the time all I could see was a genius and two extras, despite Naruto and Sakura's great progress. I actually bragged once that Sasuke was just like me. I even told off that Sand kid for assuming he knew what Sasuke was really like even as I was making the same mistake. It figures I'd be proven wrong by a lunatic. But I didn't realize it then, so I kept training him and teaching him as much advanced jutsu as I knew. I even taught him the only technique I ever created."

Ino looked a little confused as she asked, "That's it? I mean that bad considering he turned traitor but…"

Kakashi shook his head and said, "No, I don't mean I just trained him. I favored him over Naruto… Blatantly."

The blonde's eyes narrowed as she said, "Define blatant."

The jounin sighed and rubbed his eye.

"As in he asked me immediately after the chuunin preliminaries for help in the upcoming tournament and I flat out told him 'no', that I was going to train Sasuke instead."

Ino raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms as she said, "I have to say Hatake, when you fuck up, you do it big."

Kakashi winced a little at the sharp tone. It sucked being in a guilt trip, but it sucked even worse when someone else agreed with your reasoning.

"Yeah… I tried to get him another tutor, but-"

"He wanted his own sensei to teach him. He saw it as being tossed aside for the umpteenth time for the great Uchiha Sasuke, this time by his own teacher who he'd worked hard to impress. Then he went off on his own and by luck stumbled across a better, stronger teacher. And now it burns you that not only did you basically tell him that he wasn't worth the time to train because Sasuke was better than him and would beat him anyways, he bounced back and now he's someone else's star pupil and you can't take any credit for it. Am I right?" Ino calmly stated in her calm, yet razor-sharp voice.

"Disturbingly correct. Are you sure you're not psychic yet?" Kakashi jested, trying to cover his guilt with a bit of humor. The guilt in his eye gave him away though.

"And now you want to make that up a little bit by properly teaching someone else?" The sharp blonde continued. Kakashi could only nod.

"Hmph. And everyone said he was the idiot of Team 7… Did you even apologize to him about it or congratulate him on beating Neji and that Sand freak and this Kabuuko guy or whatever his name is?" Ino asked. The copy-nin grimaced under his mask and shook his head 'no' to all the above.

"I think, more than tutoring me, you owe him an apology when he wakes up," Ino calmly said, the venom in her voice disappearing. Kakashi blinked and stared at her, surprise evident on his face. She was suddenly letting him off the hook? The girl shrugged at his look and took a sip of her lukewarm soup. "What? It was him you screwed over, not me. It's not like you aren't sorry about it, but I think he'd appreciate it more if you actually told him rather than beat yourself up for it. This whole time he's probably been thinking you've missed your protégé more than you missed him."

"And they said Sakura was the smartest of your class," Kakashi said, chuckling and shaking is head.

Ino snorted and replied, "Flattery only gets you so far, Hatake. I'd rather you tell me what you know about Bloodline Limits, since that's the only thing we haven't covered. We can go over the rest on Saturday."

Kakashi looked at her a little surprised and said, "You still want to meet up for training?"

"Well, duh," The genin replied, rolling her eyes. "You may play favorites, but at least you actually train your students. Asuma-sensei can't even claim that much. Now tell me about the Limits."

The copy-nin nodded, eager to get of the subject of his failure, and began, "Alright. First off, while you may have a hidden Limit that's been forgotten by your family or was added by an external marriage, the odds of it are very low. In this village, only one person in thirty has a Bloodline and we have the largest collection of Limits on the continent. Recessive Bloodlines are even rarer than that. Next, assuming you do have a Limit, it's harder than hell to awaken it. I know the Sharingan awakens during times of battle and great stress, but that might not be the case for yours. There's a range of difficulty when it comes to awakening different Limits. For instance, every Hyuuga who can use chakra can also use the Byakugan. That's just the way their Bloodline is.

"In your case, I think some sort of mental disturbance, like an outside force trying to enter your mind, would be your best chance to awaken the Limit. This is, of course, assuming you have one and assuming it's a psychic ability. And the Byakugan brings up another point. Even if you do awaken a Limit, it might not be very powerful, especially if your family hasn't been selectively breeding to strengthen the Bloodline. Every Hyuuga can use the Byakugan, but not every Hyuuga can see chakra opening points, you see? Only a few have inherited the Bloodline that strong. So you've got quite the crapshoot to work through. Your Bloodline might be weak, you might not be able to awaken it, and you may not have one at all."

Ino sighed. She had known it would be a gamble, but she hadn't known just how bad the odds were. Still, there was one other route.

"What about making a Bloodline?" She asked, having no idea if it was safe or even possible, but figuring it wouldn't hurt to find out.

Kakashi shook his head as he said, "Not a good idea for two major reasons. One, creating a Limit is a _very_ long process. It takes mastery of seals, rituals, and extensive knowledge on the workings of the human body. Not to mention you need to be about as powerful as a Sannin to pull off the creation process. The seals have to be balanced properly and they need to be thoroughly tested to avoid nasty side effects. The rituals themselves are deadly and even masters get themselves and everyone involved killed half the time because of a tiny error. You also pay a high price for making the Limit. The Bloodline wouldn't go to you, but to your children. In return for your descendants bearing the Limit, your ability to use chakra is virtually destroyed. To get a Limit you either have to be born with it or have it sealed into you the day you are born. That's the first reason."

"And the second?" Ino asked in a groaning tone, her hopes at creating a Bloodline already destroyed.

"The second reason is no one knows how to make them anymore," Kakashi said with a cheerful eye smile. The genin rolled her eyes at the man's mood swings. The jounin ignored the not-so-subtle jibe and kept talking. "The only place that information is kept would be in an old clan's scroll vault or in the Scroll of Forbidden Seals that only the Hokage has access to. Either way, the knowledge is pretty much gone in the Leaf. There may be other Hidden Villages that still actively practice Bloodline creation, but not here. We've never really practiced Limit creation, actually. When our village was founded, Shodai-sama had an open door policy to any and all bearers of Advanced Bloodlines. We got hundreds of refugees from Bloodline bearing clans from all over the continent with that move and we've never been so short on them that we needed to create new Bloodlines."

"Shit," Ino hissed. Well, that _sucked_. One method had terrible odds and the other way would just destroy her abilities, which was exactly what she _didn't_ want. Neat history on the Advanced Bloodlines though. "Looks like I'll take my chances on unlocking a Bloodline. Even without a Limit to back it up, what do you think of the training plan I've got?"

"It's still good," Kakashi replied. "A Bloodline would only enhance an already sturdy setup. I say you stick to this and try it out for a decent period of time, say a year or so. While you're doing that keep an eye out for anything that sets off those dreams of yours. They might be the key to unlocking a Limit. Keep the stuff I've written down in mind and you should be fine. Oh, one thing I'd say you need to be careful about is forcing yourself to match that graph too heavily."

"Huh?" Ino said, confusion obvious on her pretty features. "Isn't that the point?"

The copy-nin shook his head and replied, "Use that as a guideline, yes, but don't force yourself to fit it if you're unable to. You may not fit the mold at all. Who knows? You might find out that your gen-jutsu talent sucks and you're actually quite skilled at tai-jutsu. If you try to force yourself to fit into something you aren't made for, then you'll only wind up hurting and weakening yourself in the long run. My point is: it's good to have a goal as long as you don't let it limit you."

Ino thought about it for a moment, before nodding her head.

"Sounds good, Hatake. I'll keep it in mind."

Kakashi smiled at her, but there was a look of faint disappointment in his eyes. The girl scowled at that.

"What's wrong now, you bum? Did I forget to read underneath the underneath?" The genin asked sarcastically, but with little venom in her voice.

The Copy-Ninja shook his head and answered, "No, you got exactly what I was saying. I only wish I'd been able to teach my students that lesson."

"Well, Naruto seems to have gotten it pretty solidly. And I hate to burst your little I'm-a-genius-everything-relies-on-me bubble, but Sasuke turning out to be a traitorous asshole instead of a loyal asshole isn't your fault, so whatever he didn't learn from you is on his head. Don't know about Sakura, but who knows what she's thinking?" Ino said with a raised eyebrow as she forced herself to finish the rest of her cool soup before eating what was left of her dango.

The jounin in front of her let out a tired sigh and said, "You're right, Ino-san, but I still feel that I could have taught Sasuke better. It seems that all he chose to learn from me were tricks to kill people with. His goal is to become an 'Avenger' and he's sacrificed everything to realize that. Ironically, he's only destroyed his growth in the process and he'll never be able to fulfill his ambition. As for Naruto…"

Kakashi looked down at the table his arms rested on. He painfully said, "I could never teach that lesson to Naruto because he's known it all along. He could teach _me_ a thing or two about allowing a dream or a goal to hold you down. Part of being the Hokage is being the best at damn near everything, including being a good human being. I have little doubt that he'll succeed in his dream. Well, I _had_ little doubt. With his injuries…"

Ino looked up as she swallowed the last bite of her dango.

"Speaking of Naruto, I wonder if the Hokage is feeling better? I was going to head back up for awhile before I went home. You coming?" She asked casually, seeming to dismiss the man's guilty air.

"No, I'll hang around here for a bit. I'll be spending the night on the couch in his room anyways. I figured I might as well pull guard duty while I'm stuck here," Kakashi answered.

"Alright, I'll head on up then," Ino said, getting to her feet and grabbing her tray. "We still on for training Saturday?"

The Copy-Ninja nodded, his eye still downcast. He jumped in surprise when the blonde punched his arm.

"Knock off the gloomy act, will you? Rather than wallow in self-pity, you should be thinking up a decent apology. I hear Iruka-sensei takes Naruto out to a ramen bar all the time, so bribe him with food or something," Ino said. As she walked off, she gave a flippant, "Later, Hatake," over her shoulder.

Kakashi sighed, though it was less guilt ridden than before. The bitchy blonde had a point, dammit. As he sat there watching the fountain across the room, the copy-nin idly wondered if a jounin's pay would be enough to satisfy Naruto's ramen lust. Then he winced, remembering that Iruka's wallet was always empty whenever the boy was in town.

'And I was sooo looking forward to next Icha Icha volume.'

* * *

Ino opened the door quietly, just in case the Hokage was still in the room. Peeking her head in, she was surprised to see a dark figure turned away from her. The sun had set while she was getting dinner and no one had bothered to turn the lights on in the room yet. Because of the shadow, she couldn't make out who it was, but the person was definitely smaller than Tsunade. Whoever it was, they were standing next to the bed muttering something over and over.

Remembering what Kakashi had said about people being after Naruto, Ino eased her way into the room and shut door behind her. The well oiled hinges and latch didn't make a sound and the person appeared to be too distracted to have noticed the brief glare of light from the hall. The genin inched her way forward as her hand went to the slim kunai she kept hidden in the bandages on her right thigh. You never could be too careful in a ninja village, after all…

As Ino got closer, the figure's muttering became clearer and clearer. It was still hard to make out though and for all she knew it was some sort of bizarre jutsu. She was leaning up to grab the slim figure in a chokehold from behind when she finally caught part of what they were saying.

"…Stupid dobe… Stupid dumb-ass… Can't believe you… What'll you do now…? Dumb moron…"

Ino blinked. Her eyes were adjusting enough that she could finally make out the white circle on the back of the figure's outfit.

"Sakura?" There was a sharp gasp as the person whirled around.

"Ino?" The genin in question frowned. Something was funny about the way Sakura was speaking. The chuunin's voice was lower and scratchier than normal. Her hand tightened on the kunai, still not sure if it was really her friend standing there. It could be an assassin using a henge to sneak in here. If that was the case, then what the hell did they do to the real Sakura? Even if the two kunoichi fought like alley-cats half the time, if someone hurt her pale friend…

"Yeah, it's me. Why the hell are you standing in the dark? And why is your voi- OOF!"

The kunai skittered across the floor as a forceful impact knocked Ino onto her ass. In the twilight dark of the room, it was hard to make out her attacker. Ino tried to get to her feet, only to realize an odd weight was pinning her to the floor. Panic swept through her, the cold adrenaline heightening her senses even as her nerves screamed at her to run.

'Nin-jutsu? Gen-jutsu? What the hell did they do to me?' The genin frantically thought.

A hitching sound, halfway between a sob and a sniffle broke through Ino's haze of fear. As she took better stock of her surroundings, she realized the weight on her was warm, soft, and smelled of cherry blossoms. Carefully, she moved her arms and wrapped them around what turned out to be a near-hysterical Sakura who was lying most of the way on top of her and sobbing into her chest.

'Dammit, you ditz. I nearly cut your throat open and you almost gave me a heart attack. If you weren't so upset I'd whack you on the head.'

Ino allowed herself to relax and forced her heart rate down. Slowly, she managed to tug the crying medic up and over to the more comfortable couch, as her ass wasn't appreciating resting on the cold floor. She grimly noted that she'd have quite the colorful bruise there tomorrow from all the trauma her posterior had received that day ('Stupid giant toads and stupid crying kunoichi who stand around in the dark.') Sakura hadn't released her hold once and only burrowed deeper into her friend's chest when Ino got them on the couch. It took the genin almost fifteen minutes, but she was able to calm Sakura down enough for her to tell her what happened.

Sakura had avoided visiting Naruto's room until the end of her shift just to spite Ino. When she'd finally walked up to the room, she'd paused with her hand on the door handle when she heard the Hokage speaking from inside. She'd used her excellent chakra control to hide her aura and listen in undetected. Fortunately, the ninjas inside the room were too occupied to notice the brief flicker from outside the room. She'd listened with growing horror as Tsunade listed Naruto's injuries and described his crippled healing factor. She'd been quite impressed when they talked about Naruto's mastery of an A Rank jutsu, but that didn't surprise her much as he was always off somewhere learning something new. When the Godaime asked the other ninjas to leave, she'd moved quickly down the hall and into a nearby room to avoid being caught in the act of eavesdropping.

As luck or fate would have it, she'd picked a room that was nearby the bench Kakashi picked to sit on. She'd listened in on their conversation with Shizune as the older medic described Naruto and Tsunade's relationship. It hadn't really occurred to her until then, but she'd noticed before that Tsunade kept a framed picture of herself, Jiraiya, Shizune, and Naruto on her desk, presumably from the trip to bring the wayward Slug Sannin back to the Leaf. Sakura had spent the next hour waiting for the Hokage to leave Naruto's room and berating herself on her earlier actions. When Tsunade finally left the room to terrorize the entire nursing staff of the floor about their conduct, Sakura had snuck in and checked Naruto out for herself. She'd managed to ignore the sight of him covered in bandages, but she'd only gotten halfway through a diagnostic jutsu before the results caused her to breakdown. She had no idea how long she'd been standing there until Ino came in.

Sakura finished her story and trailed off, relieved that her friend was there to listen to her and wasn't as angry as she's been earlier. She'd loosened her hold a bit, but she refused to let go completely. Ino sighed and ran her hands through Sakura's hair, internally grumbling about pink-haired teases who innocently flaunted how good their hair smelled to girls that used to have crushes on them. She wasn't really upset though. In all honesty, just about all her anger towards Sakura from earlier that day had disappeared when she saw how upset the medic was over her former comrade.

"Silly… If you'd listened to me before, you wouldn't be so upset now. Now look at how much you've gotten yourself worked up," The blonde gently said. Sakura leaned back to stare up at her for a full five seconds before her face crumpled and she started crying again, while burying her face in her rival's shoulder. Ino smacked her own forehead with her free hand and sighed, before trying to calm Sakura down again.

'Smooth, Yamanaka, real smooth.'

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**-General: **I was delayed in my posting by a day, though my next posting should come out on time. I'm pleasantly surprised by the reviews I've gotten so far. In two days since its initial posting 'Foxhound' has gotten more reviews than any of my other stories have in two _years_. Of course, part of that is probably due to Naruto being a more popular series than Evangelion and the fact that I wrote those other stories sometime between 1999-2001, so I've (hopefully) improved since then.

Anyways, as people have likely guessed, I really like odd or rare pairings and my stories reflect that. I've decided on the pairings for Naruto, Ino, and a couple others, but I'm still open for suggestions as far as the other secondary characters go. If you have an idea, please mention it in your review. I'll listen to any opinions, but all the pairings will still be odd or rare (I'm sooo sick of every epic length story being NaruHina SasuSaku ShikaIno NejiTen. Come on! Variety people! Near canon pairings are so dull…) As a further note, the pairings can be _anyone_, so girl/girl and guy/guy are not out of the question as long as they are unusual (meaning Kakashi/Ebisu or Tsunade/Temari has a chance, while KakaIru and Itachi/Anybody does not.) If you have any suggestions, please mention them!

I also have a couple info requests, if anyone is interested. Odds are this was either in the anime (which I don't watch 'cuz Naruto looks like a yellow sea-urchin and there's too much filler crap) or I missed it in a badly translated manga, so please bear with me if I sound dumb. Two questions: One, who is the female ANBU that's seen at the memorial during and after the Sound-Sand invasion? I think she's related to Hayate, but I really don't know for sure. And, Two, what is this about squirrels and Lee? I've seen that in a couple fics, but not in the manga.

On the subject of the first question, has anyone else wondered why the hell half a dozen ANBU are standing around staring at a gravestone while the entire village is being overrun by enemy ninja and snake summons? I mean, did it go something like, "The village is under attack!" "Damn, what should we do! Protect the Hokage and the innocent civilians who are being murdered as we speak?" "No! Let's go mourn at the cemetery for awhile, swear vengeance while looking angsty, and _then_ go drive back the invaders!" Sheesh, no wonder Konoha lost half their ninjas in that battle, if their elite are sitting around with their thumbs up their butts. Anyways, rant done and if anyone can answer the two questions above (I'm really curious about the squirrel thing) I'd really appreciate it. Just a line or two in your review would be fine. Thanks!

Oh and the action will pick up about two chapters for anyone who's bored brainless with character interactions. I think it will anyways. I may toss in Iruka fighting the missing-nin in the next chapter. Haven't decided yet. Eh…

And Gai will be a comic relief throughout this story (hey, he's the canon comic relief, so why not?) Don't worry, he won't be a weakling or anything and I'll try to keep it in character. That kinda leads to…

OOCness! I'm trying to keep them in character, but hey this is AU and I'm still new, so what can I say? I hope Ino's mad-run to the hospital is explained sufficiently in this chapter (just like I hope I don't need to explain Lee's man-run.) And before anyone rails at me about it, yes Ino used to be in love with Sakura in this story. By this point it's like an old crush; she's still attracted to her, but she's given up on it. I don't know where exactly I'll go with this (but if it does happen, it won't be for another ten-fifteen chapters or so which equals roughly 450-675 pages of story at my current writing rate, so it'll be awhile even if I decide to make something of it), but I will warn you there will be at least one other major shoujo-ai pairing. My profile warns that I like that genre after all, right?

**-Jutsu:**

No new jutsu this time, but a brief interpretation on the Chidori and Rasengan (to further clarify from the conversation between Kakashi/Ino/Tsunade/Shizune in the above chapter.) Most of this is supported by the canon, but my views might be slightly different as Kishimoto doesn't go into detailed description of each jutsu. This is just from the effects I've seen and the dialogue the characters use to describe them.

-**Chidori** (Thousand Bird Chirpings) (B Rank Jutsu) A powerful Lightning Elemental assassination skill designed by Hatake Kakashi (his sole original technique.) Nin-jutsu. Three seals long.

The Chidori is a simple, but powerful jutsu that Kakashi developed roughly fifteen years ago. The seals are formed and chakra is gathered into one hand. The chakra is concentrated to the point that it's visible and makes an audible sound. Once formed, the Chidori can be maintained until it impacts the target, allowing the user high levels of maneuverability while performing the jutsu. The chakra makes the hand blade-like and it when it impacts, the energy is released so it does piercing/slashing damage as well as causing large scale chakra burns. At close-range, the Chidori does less damage, being mostly a chakra blade. When the user moves at high speeds though, its power is greatly magnified and its true destructive force shows through. This move has been proven able to punch a hole clean through a human, several feet of rock, and at least several inches of steel.

This skill is B Ranked because the jutsu has two flaws, one major and one minor. The major flaw is that this move is incomplete. To use the Chidori effectively (and safely), the user has to be moving at high speeds and at a near straight line. The speed is too fast to see an opponent's counter-attack, making it near-suicidal. While having the Sharingan conveniently negates that problem, the inherent flaw within the jutsu remains, limiting its ranking. The minor flaw is that the Chidori makes a 'chi-chi-chi' (bird-chirping) sound while active. Obviously, stealth is impossible. This makes the actual 'assassination' part rather difficult if your opponent can hear you coming. Thus, the Chidori is limited to open combat.

As a side note: Chidori is also called Raikiri (Lightning Edge) as supposedly Kakashi once cut a lightning bolt in half with it (how or why he did this is not explained. Neither is how he avoided being turned into Kentucky Fried Copy-nin.)

-**Rasengan** (Spiral Shot) (A Rank Jutsu) A _very_ powerful Wind Elemental combat move created by the Yondaime (took him three years to develop it.) Nin-jutsu. No seals used.

The Rasengan is a move designed to totally obliterate the unlucky soul who finds himself on the receiving end. Chakra is gathered into the palm of one hand and molded so it's spinning and slashing. The chakra is then encased in a double layer of additional chakra. Stable, it looks like a vibrating blue-white sphere of energy about 6 to 9 inches long. Unstable, it's a swirling mass of wind that's about the size of a softball and has loose tendrils of wind flying off of it (and it loses a _lot_ of power when it's unstable.) The Rasengan can be used to stun/moderately injure an opponent (this depends on chakra control) or to destroy them from the inside-out. A stable Rasengan is basically the 'dum-dum' bullet from hell. The initial impact area takes only moderate damage, but the gathered wind energy spreads out inside the target, twisting, slashing, and drilling throughout the body all in a spiral formation. It's _very_ painful and quite fatal unless the initial blow is buffered/blocked by chakra somehow. Even so, there's so much energy in the move that it takes a _lot_ of chakra and a very good healing jutsu to recover from it. This move has been proven to be powerful enough to throw a man roughly ten meters into a boulder hard enough to crack it and leave a foot deep trench the whole way (this is in addition to the internal damage caused by the move.) It can also tear out the entire side of a water tower roughly twenty to thirty feet tall. It will also only scratch the forehead of an opponent if it directly impacts a Chidori (-cough- continuity error -cough-.)

This skill is A Rank, as there is no real weakness to this move except for the difficulty in learning how to perform it right. It takes a lot of chakra control to perform the jutsu properly as there are no seals to mold the chakra automatically, but using a kage bunshin makes the creation process much easier. Fortunately, it seems like the Sharingan can't copy this skill (probably due to the chaotic nature of the move and the lack of seals.) There are only three people who have ever learned this skill: The Yondaime, Jiraiya, and Naruto. There may be a connection to being born an innate Wind Element and being able to learn this skill, but it's more likely that Jiraiya wouldn't trust it to anyone but the Yondaime's Legacy.

**Reviews:**

Like I said in the General section, I got a lot of good reviews. To restate my reviews thingy, I appreciate constructive criticism and compliments. I ask that you don't flame, as it seems kind of pointless and rude (and I don't flame people myself, so do onto others and whatnot.) Anyways, to those who wrote a review that caught my eye, I'll briefly answer a couple questions (since you guys were nice enough to give me your opinion.)

(Reviews removed)

To everyone else who reviewed, no I'm not ignoring you, I just want to post this thing and go to bed. Thanks to _all_ of you for taking the time to do some feedback.

**Next Chapter:** Chap. 2 posted 3/12/05. Alrighty, like I said before sorry about the day long delay getting Chapter 2 up (the editing took longer than expected.) Chapter 3 is already done, but I need to extensively edit and pad it (since I wrote it _before_ 1 and 2 and need to fix it for continuity errors), so I'm gonna shoot for next Friday again. So, Chap.3 should be out 3/19/05 (give or take a day.)


	3. Just keep soaking it

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: Naruto has survived the attack, though with unpleasant prospects for recovery. Ino and Kakashi learn of Tsunade's relationship with Naruto from Shizune and Kakashi laments over his past failures. Kakashi discusses training with Ino and agrees to advice her every now and then.

**Chap. 3 – "Just keep soaking it…Just keep soaking it…Just keep soaking it."**

"You failed, I see."

"My partner was killed by the Sannin rather quickly. I can't fight Jiraiya-sama and Gamabunta-sama at the same time. I would have been killed in minutes."

"Hmm... Our intelligence indicates the boss toad ignores Jiraiya for the most part. How was he able to control it?"

"The Kyuubi-brat, I guess. I tailed them for awhile after I retreated. Toad seemed pretty worried about the boy. Chewed Jiraiya out about it something awful."

"So Gamabunta has a connection to the Yondaime's Legacy…How fitting. Did you get a sample of the vessel's blood?"

"Right here. After that seal went off, there was plenty everywhere."

"And how did our seal fare against the Kyuubi?"

"It worked, just not how we expected. Your source wants the Kyuubi dead, not captured."

"…_Really_?"

"That seal didn't stun the brat like we thought. It turned the two chakras on each other and tore him halfway apart. If the kid hadn't been exhausted, he would've been blown apart completely."

"…Then we won't risk its use again. It seems our…benefactors aren't as forthcoming as they wish us to believe."

"You already knew that though. Demons ain't known for playing fair."

"Of course. We'll avoid depending on them from now on."

"What about the boy? Know how he's doing?"

"He's alive. The seals they gave us to track the Kyuubi work that well, at least."

"He survived, huh? Kid was hamburger last time I saw him."

"Yes, the Kyuubi's healing powers are greater than expected."

"He still ain't going anywhere for awhile. Itachi-san could easily grab him."

"…No. Tsunade and Jiraiya will have him too well guarded for a simple abduction. Even Itachi would have to fight his way through to get to him. The risk to the vessel is too high in his condition."

"Alright, then. I'll add his blood to the tracking seals. If he moves outside the village, we'll know."

"That's fine. Keep someone around to watch it. It may be some time before the Godaime lets the vessel out of her sight again."

"Sure, I'll set up a rotation."

"Be vigilant, but don't worry about it too much. We can afford to be patient in this matter."

"Right, our ambition. It'll happen soon enough anyways."

"Yes, it most certainly will."

* * *

Ino strolled along the road, holding a fresh bouquet in her arms (this one thankfully minus a ten pound vase.) It had been a week and a half since she'd made the first one and she'd noticed it was starting to wilt the least time she had visited Naruto. She hummed a bit as she blatantly ignored the stares the glaring orange flowers in her arms attracted. The blonde girl's expression was very cheerful, which was rather strange considering one of her eyes was swollen shut and she was walking with a limp.

She'd just gotten back from a brief mission out to Wave country with Team 10. On the way, they'd gotten into a tangle with several Sound-nins. Orochimaru had apparently declared that any Leaf-nin seen outside of Konoha was to be killed on sight to teach that 'uppity old hag' a lesson. With five against four, it seemed like it would be a nasty fight, but in reality it had been a pathetically quick battle. Shikamaru had merely Shadow Bound them all and released them a split second before Chouji had rolled over all but one with his Meat Tank jutsu. The surviving enemy-nin made a break for it, but Ino had surprised everyone (including herself) by intercepting and catching him off guard with a fire jutsu in the face. It hadn't killed the nin and she'd gotten beaten up immediately afterwards, but her delaying action had bought enough time for Asuma (who'd been checking for enemy reinforcements) to catch up and knock the man out.

On their return to the Leaf, Tsunade-sama had been pleasantly surprised and congratulated all of them. They'd killed four Sound-nins and because of Ino they had also gotten one of them alive for interrogation (read: Ibiki was _very_ happy.) Though she acted smug on the outside when her teammates had questioned her about it, inwardly she was jumping around in joy at her accomplishment. Ino honestly hadn't made a conscious decision to go after the enemy ninja. She'd just done it on instinct (and nearly puked afterwards when the adrenaline high left.) Still, it was something she was proud of and maybe that creepy Ibiki guy would be able to 'persuade' some valuable information out if the Sound-nin that would help Konoha. She couldn't wait to tell Kakashi and Sakura all about it.

In truth, Ino would have never pulled it off if she hadn't followed Kakashi's advice. The day after she and the jounin had talked in the cafeteria, she'd gathered up her savings and headed to the scroll shop he'd mentioned, where she bought anything that looked remotely useful. The shop owner had been a smart old man who knew a determined ninja when he saw one. He hadn't allowed her to buy the more advanced texts as she was still a genin, but he made up for it by pointing out which scrolls and books were useful and which were garbage (that he kept in stock just to make some extra money off of ninja wannabes.) The old man had wholeheartedly agreed with every text on Kakashi's list. He was so impressed with the notes the jounin and Ino had collectively written, that he let her get away with buying one higher level gen-jutsu scroll ("On the condition you use it on those damn snake things that trashed my shop during the invasion!") The old fart was forward, sharp, and took no crap, even from upper level shinobi.

Obviously he and Ino got along just fine.

Ino had been so excited that she'd spent all of her free time reading through the texts she'd bought. She took time away from studying only to go on missions or visit the hospital. She even read while working in the flower shop (much to the annoyance of her parents and the customers.) She read late into every night, stopping only when she finally fell asleep from exhaustion. It was a good thing Kakashi was always late or he would have waited several hours for Ino to show up, as she overslept the day they were to meet. As it was, Ino was frantically worried that the copy-nin had already left and had paced around for ten minutes before she saw the jounin limping along down the path towards her. The first training session wasn't very productive, as Kakashi had only wanted to test her to see what she knew and how powerful she was. Ino was disappointed that even when exhausted and leaning on crutches, the jounin could still block all her punches and kicks. Afterwards, the Copy-Ninja understood why Ino wanted to get better so badly and said as much to her.

He was strangely unable to block the fist that followed his comment.

The next day, Kakashi had Ino do a tree climbing exercise using only her feet that helped build chakra control and stamina. The genin was pleased to note that she made it about twenty feet up before she had to drop back down. Then the copy-nin had 'encouraged' her with the casual remark that Sakura had made it to the top on her first try. One hour later, Ino was lying exhausted on the ground, her kunai was dull and chipped, and the tree looked like a maniac had carved up its front with a chainsaw. Kakashi let her rest for another hour before teaching her a basic fire jutsu called Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu.

It took Ino quite some time to figure it out (mainly because Kakashi couldn't actually demonstrate it in his exhausted state), but by the end of the day she'd been able to pull it off. He'd told her to practice it every day to build up her chakra reserves. It was that same jutsu that she'd used on the Sound-nin and while she couldn't perform it perfectly yet, it was still strong enough to sear the man's head into a blister covered cue-ball. Shikamaru and Chouji's expressions alone had been worth fending off the enraged enemy-nin afterwards. Though Kakashi might have already found out about the mission, she still couldn't wait to get his opinion on it (and maybe do a little bragging.) Hopefully, he was still taking up residence on the couch in Naruto's room.

Ino paused in her walk as an extra sharp tremor of pain rippled up her leg. And hopefully Sakura would be around to heal her leg and eye up.

Sakura's attitude had done a 180 as far as Naruto was concerned. Since she was in the hospital every other day anyways as part of her medical training, the pink-haired girl made sure to drop by every few hours and on her breaks. She would check up on Naruto and often chat with Kakashi for awhile before heading back to work. She and Ino were getting along a little better as well (read: their arguments were merely verbal, not physical.) That first night when Ino had found her in Naruto's room, it had taken the blonde a good hour to calm Sakura down. She'd finally walked the girl home, passing a mildly confused Kakashi in the hall. Sakura had even come over early the next morning to apologize for the fight the day before and they'd visited Naruto together. She'd even bought a daffodil to take with her, after Ino mentioned that she had gotten some flowers for the hospital room. They were laughing and chatting by the time they'd walked in there. It had felt almost like old times.

…Then Sakura had to ruin the peaceful mood by screaming at the sight of a 'mutant anemone about to suck Naruto's brains out' sitting next to his bed. Needless to say, Ino was _very_ upset that her bouquet had been mistaken for a toxic marine invertebrate. It was made worse by the fact that Sakura was _deadly_ serious and even went so far as to draw a kunai to attack the thing, until Ino got her in a headlock. Apparently, the medic hadn't even noticed the eyesore the night before, between the lack of lighting and her worry over Naruto. The tensions weren't eased one bit by Kakashi, who was stifling giggles while pretending to be asleep. It was truly surprising that Naruto hadn't woken up during the ensuing argument, considering Ino and Sakura at top volume were theoretically loud enough to wake the dead.

They had certainly scared the hell out of poor Hinata when she opened the door on their squabble. The shy girl had jumped at the dark looks the fighting kunoichi had sent her way (which they promptly withdrew upon seeing who it was) and the only reason she hadn't run was her cousin's hand on her shoulder. Neji's stoic presence had calmed things a bit and the arguing girls had settled down. Well, at least until Neji's sharp eyes traced over the bouquet. Seeing the normally unflappable boy flinch and instinctively go for a kunai caused Sakura to burst out into mocking laughter again. This, of course, caused Ino to start chocking her. Their scuffle ground to a halt only when they heard a weak, "Naruto-kun," and turned just in time to see Hinata pass out. It seemed the sight of the blonde boy's bandaged body was a bit too much for her to handle. Fortunately, Neji had superb reaction time and easily caught the girl before she hit the floor. He'd set Hinata's homemade 'Get Well' card down on the side table and gave Naruto a solemn bow before leaving, with his unconscious cousin draped over his shoulder.

Well, leave it to the blasted Hyuugas to kill a good cat fight. Three seconds after saying that, Kakashi found out first hand just how far Sakura's training under Tsunade had progressed when he was violently introduced to her fist.

Over the next couple days, the rest of the Rookie 9 had dropped by and visited. Shikamaru and Chouji left a card they'd gotten together and gave Ino another set of curious looks when they saw her visiting (they seemed to be giving her a lot of those lately.) Kiba and Shino had each dropped by and even Tenten had stopped in to see him. Konohamaru and his two little friends had also come by as well, though the Sandaime's grandson had to be dragged out when he became almost as hysterical as Lee at the sight of his 'leader'. Even the old man and his daughter from the Ichiraku Ramen Bar had visited. Ino was pretty surprised at the amount of people Naruto knew, considering the boy's habit of pissing off almost everyone he met. It was still heartwarming to see so many people worried about the fuzzy haired genin.

Sakura had taken the task of informing each visitor the extent of the blonde boy's injuries. That is to say, she told them all the 'official' version of Naruto's condition. Tsunade-sama had given them all orders that no one else was to know the full extent of the damage to his body. All they were allowed to tell people was that he'd been ambushed by Sound-nins and had taken a head injury that was keeping him unconscious. If people were aware of how severe his muscular destruction was and Naruto _did _recover from it, then it would raise a whole bunch of questions that the Hokage didn't want to give any answers to. Ino and Sakura merely assumed that it had to do with Naruto's weird healing factor and that maybe the Godaime wanted to keep it a secret, for whatever reason. Well, Tsunade-sama _is_ the supreme commander of the Leaf, so they didn't really protest the restriction.

It did make them curious though and they'd spent a couple hours pestering Kakashi with questions about Naruto's healing ability. The copy-nin hadn't given them any direct answers, but they did manage to figure out that Naruto had had the ability for as long as the jounin had known him. Sakura, as a medic-nin, was especially interested in his healing factor. The pink-haired girl had never thought about it before, but looking back she remembered several instances where Naruto had recovered from severe injuries in days instead of weeks. She hadn't had practical medical knowledge then, but now that she'd been trained in the field she was amazed that she'd completely missed it. Sakura had even gone so far as to use her chuunin rank to access the Bloodline records in the medical library to see if she could find any information on the ability. She and Ino had been disappointed that there was no mention of a regeneration type Limit, nor was any Uzumaki mentioned under the known Advanced Bloodlines. Ino had then suggested that Sakura check the Uzumaki family records to see if the Bloodline came from an outside marriage. What Sakura found gave the two girls quite a shock.

There was no Uzumaki clan. Period.

There was no one in Konoha, living or dead, that bore the same surname as Naruto. They hadn't really expected to find even his birth records, considering he was born the day of the Kyuubi's attack, but to find _nothing _was startling. And kind of creepy. The other children orphaned by the Nine-Tails usually had a known name, either from their dead parents or one that a foster family had given them. With Naruto, it seemed like someone had just pulled a word out a hat and slapped it on him. Sakura originally guessed he was from a different clan and no one had known which, but since none of the other clans in Fire Country had healing abilities, she couldn't figure out which one he'd come from. Assuming, of course, he was from any of the Fire clans. It was like the boy had just appeared from thin air one October day fourteen years ago. Honestly, it didn't really change anything, but it would have been a nice coming-out-of-a-coma present to be able to tell Naruto a little about his family history. Oh well, they'd just have to get Kakashi to treat the boy to ramen when he woke up.

The jounin had visibly flinched when Sakura suggested that idea to him. Naruto's ramen addiction was almost as infamous as his loud voice.

Ino glanced up as a large shadow blocked the warm, spring sunlight. The hospital was looming above her already. She grinned and rushed inside as fast as her bum leg would allow her. Between the shiner on her eye and the orange monstrosity she was holding, everyone she passed gave her some really strange looks. Fortunately, you can't be teammates for several years with an eating machine like Chouji without learning how to ignore people staring. Ino reached Naruto's room and was just pulling it open when she heard a deep, loud voice talking from the inside.

"-find a trace of the bastards _anywhere_. It's like they up and disappeared off the face of the planet," It was saying.

"That's not good," Kakashi's familiar lazy tones replied. There was a pause and he continued, "Ino-san, please come in and shut the door."

Ino was too curious to be embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping. She slipped inside the room and quietly closed the door after her. The owner of the deep voice gave her an appraising and slightly lecherous look, before turning back to Kakashi. Oddly, the strangely dressed man didn't even blink at the sight of her bouquet.

"Anyways, somehow they not only found out I was spying on them but they also managed to feed me false information through several different and normally reliable sources," Jiraiya continued. Ino walked over to Naruto's bed and started replacing the flowers, not even hiding the fact that she was listening in. She figured that if one of the Sannin and the Copy-Ninja were openly talking about it in front of her, it either wasn't classified or they didn't mind her knowing.

"Did you find out how many of your contacts have been compromised?" Kakashi asked. Ino took note that his eye was unusually serious as she crossed the room to pitch the old flowers. She also took the opportunity to give Jiraiya a once over. The man was very tall and had snow-white hair in an odd spiky style that ran down his back in a long horse tail. He didn't wear a Konoha forehead protector, but rather some odd horned plate with an unusual symbol on it. His robes were outlandish and his face had two bright crimson streaks running from each eye to underneath his chin. He seemed powerful, flashy, and loud.

No wonder Naruto had wanted this guy to train him.

"No and that's what worries me. My spy network is one of the best and it's taken me twenty years to get it so strong. Even Orochimaru and his little nation of tone-deaf freaks can't keep tabs on them. If _they_," The Sannin added a slight wink here," can find even a handful of my spies, then they can find all of them. As it is, I don't know how much they know or if anything I know is what they want me to know, you know? I don't even have any idea how long this misinformation has been going on, so I can't even trust the old info I gathered. Some of their members may have been playing me for a fool before the group was even founded."

Ino sat on the couch, listening intently to every word the two ninjas were saying. What group are they talking about and how could they be so good that they were able to trick a Sannin?

"I don't think they've been messing with your information that far back," Kakashi said. He scratched at his masked chin as he continued, "When I encountered two of their agents a couple years ago, I mentioned that we already knew about their group. I was just trying to bluff them, considering you hadn't been able to tell us much, but they were very surprised that they'd been found out. They were even about to kill me and two other jounin before Gai interfered and got them to back off. They probably started messing with your info after you, Naruto, and Sasuke encountered them. They must have made the logical connection that it was you that told us. Unfortunate that they were right."

Jiraiya 'hmmd' thoughtfully and nodded.

"Makes sense. Itachi realized pretty quickly it was my spy network. If I remember correctly, my informants started telling me about the three year window soon after I brought Tsunade back. That'd be plenty of time for pretty-boy and shark-face to get back to their headquarters and inform their superiors I was onto them," The Sannin said. He shrugged after a moment and said, "It doesn't really matter now. What's really important is that I figure out some sort of early warning plan that'll let us know if they come after the brat again."

Ino's guts froze as adrenaline started pumping into her veins. After Naruto? Then they're talking about the bastards who attacked him! It took all her willpower to keep from jumping up and demanding answers, but the thought of them kicking her out and not learning anything else killed that urge quickly.

'Chill out, Yamanaka. They're deliberately letting you listen in, so just sit back and pay attention,' She told herself. The genin leaned forward, but controlled her breathing so as to not appear too eager. She'd made sure to remember the one name they'd let slips so far.

Itachi.

"Have you found out exactly what they want him for?" Kakashi asked, his expression relaxing to neutral.

"No," Jiraiya shook his head. "At least, I haven't learned anything beyond what we already knew. We know _why_ they want him, but not what their ultimate goal is. I told Tsunade-hime everything I knew about the freaks and she's sent a warning to the Kazekage. If they went after Naruto, they might go after their kid too."

Ino was slowly beginning to realize that the older shinobi were deliberately censoring their words. It annoyed her that they were hiding something, but at the same time it was kind of impressive. They were telling each other everything they needed to while still keeping her in the dark. Maybe this was another of Kakashi's oddball lessons. The jounin may have allowed her in the room to give her an example of 'reading underneath the underneath.'

"So what'll you do now?" Kakashi asked.

"I'm heading out to one of our allies to see if I can pick up a fresh trail. It may take some time, but I hope to have some genuine info soon," Jiraiya replied.

"How're you keeping in touch?" The jounin asked curiously. "Not messenger birds, I hope."

"Nah, too predictable. Behold!" He suddenly bellowed, making the other two shinobi jump. The Sannin quickly bit his hand, wiped the blood on the palm, and slammed it into the floor. "Summoning no Jutsu!"

Both Ino and Kakashi leaned forward eagerly to see what would come out of the smoke that appeared (being typical ninja, they loved to see new moves and totally ignored the hazard a summoning performed in the middle of a hospital presented.) Their faces fell noticeably at the small frog that hopped out.

"Yo! Gimme some food if you want me to do anything," Said the small, red-orange frog sitting calmly on the floor. It squawked in dismay when Jiraiya hefted it up onto his broad shoulder.

"A little chakra here, a little blood there, and bam! Instant messenger. No one would suspect a frog of carrying an important message," The aptly named Toad Hermit said, grinning at his own brilliance.

"I can't imagine why," Ino muttered sarcastically. After seeing Gamabunta in all his amphibian glory, this little thing was just…disappointing. Frog and summoner alike bristled at the implied insult.

"I'll have you know, little missy, that a large enough toad can cover hundreds of yards in a single hop!" Jiraiya retorted haughtily. In direct counterpoint, the little frog suddenly jumped from his shoulder towards the bed. He barely managed to cling to the side as he dragged himself up and over the sheets to hop up to Naruto's chest. Jiraiya sweat-dropped at the sight and ignored Ino's 'Uh-huh, Tell Me Another One' look.

"AHH! Big Bro! What the hell happened to you!" The toad yelled in dismay. Ino blinked. Well, add puny frogs to the circle of people Naruto knew.

"Didn't Gamabunta tell you about it, Gamakichi?" Jiraiya asked, forgetting about Ino for the moment.

"Yeah, but I didn't think you'd actually let him get busted up! What kind of Sannin are you?" The toad replied, glaring at his summoner.

"Oh shut up! What kind of summon back-talks to its summoner!" Jiraiya roared. Gamakichi merely raised one webbed foot and pulled his lower eyelid down.

"Stupid sennin!"

"Crappy summon!"

"Whatever, I'm outta here. Pops says to let one of us know if Big Bro gets better. He also says you'd better start running if he doesn't," Gamakichi said and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Jiraiya grumbled to himself for several moments about ungrateful toads and breech of contract, before turning to Kakashi.

"Anyways, as you can see I have ways of keeping in touch," The hermit said. Kakashi only responded with a sweat-drop. Shaking his head, Jiraiya walked out the door muttering about clueless shinobi who didn't understand the glorious wonder that was toads.

There were several moments of silence following the Sannin's departure. Finally Ino turned to the copy-nin.

"Well, he's an _interesting_ kind of guy," She said with amusement. Kakashi just sighed. And to think that man was the author of the beautiful work of art that was Icha Icha Paradise.

"You have no idea. So what did you get from all of that," He asked, turning his attention to the genin on the couch.

"I thought you let me in here on purpose as a training exercise!" Ino said in cheerful triumph. She wrinkling her forehead in thought as she answered, "Let's see…The group Jiraiya was talking about is the same one that attacked Naruto, obviously. They're after Naruto for a specific reason, which you only know part of and that you don't want me to know at all. The attack came as a surprise, which is why the Hokage is only now warning the Sand. Apparently, there's someone in their village that has a connection or similarity to Naruto that may attract the interest of this group as well. You guys are worried, 'cause they've managed to find out about and fool a long established and skilled spy network. They turned a Sannin's own spies against him and now you're concerned that all the information on them is faulty or some sort of deception. So this group is dangerous as hell. How's that?"

Kakashi nodded, "Good, good. You got everything I hoped you would. Though it's usually not a big deal with genin, when you advance to chuunin and higher ranks, information gathering become very important. Even more important is the skill to hide your information from the enemy while at the same time passing on what you want to an ally. It'll be hard for you now, but you'll catch on quick. Good job, Ino-san."

"Thanks Hatake," Ino replied, a light smirk on her face.

"So…Are you going to tell me how you got busted up?" Kakashi prompted, a glint of amusement in his eye.

Ino grinned and began to go over her mission in detail to the attentive jounin.

* * *

Sakura grimaced at the knot of pain in her neck as she leaned away from her desk. No wonder medics looked so terrible when they got older. She leaned back in her chair and sighed, idly looking around the small office. Being the Hokage's apprentice had some perks and a personal working space was one of them. Granted, the room was small and she had to leave the door open during the summer because of the heat, but it had a desk, some cabinets, a couple chairs, and a window that looked out onto the pretty hospital courtyard. It was more than most medics her age could brag.

It also gave her a place to eat lunch privately or to do some medical research without being disturbed. It wasn't uncommon for Shizune-san or Tsunade-sama to find her in here up to her neck in semi-pilfered scrolls, working on some pet project that had caught her interest. In the year and a half since she began her apprenticeship, she'd researched everything from anti-venoms to bone deterioration to nerve damage to even muscular structure (after one of Lee's diehard training sessions went bad.) The muscular data was still fresh in her mind from the last time she'd researched it and gave her a head start on her current project.

The healing factor of her ex-teammate, Naruto.

She'd used all of her authority as a chuunin (which only went so far, but it was much better than a genin's) to drag up Naruto's thin medical folder and all the information she could find on cellular regeneration. Unfortunately, she had found little to work with. Naruto had only been hospitalized twice before in his whole life and one of those times had been from simple exhaustion just before the Sound invasion. The records of his injuries from the mission to rescue Sasuke when the boy left (she refused to call it defection in her mind) had been deemed classified, probably by Tsunade-sama herself. There was no practical data on Naruto's healing factor at all. What's more, the only recorded abilities that were anything like regeneration were of some weird clan from the Mist Village called the Kaguya and they had been wiped out some time ago.

The Kaguyas had the ability to alter and regenerate bone tissue with ease. They could even remove bones them from their bodies right out through their flesh, which healed up instantly from the self-inflicted injury. However, external damage inflicted upon them by their enemies wasn't repaired the same way, which wasn't like Naruto's ability at all. Of course, all this information was all gathered from outside observation so the Leaf records weren't certain, but the Bloodline Limit still seemed to have little resemblance to her teammate's body.

Sakura had been able to find some jutsu that had similar properties to Naruto's healing factor, like Tsunade-sama's Genesis Seal, but from she could tell all of those techniques damaged the cells of the body in the long run. Every time a cell divides, its DNA is damaged slightly, causing small irregularities and errors to build up over time. Normally it's a slow process, but when forcibly accelerated the damage increases drastically to the point where it noticeably shortens the user's lifespan. That's the limitation for jutsu that forces regeneration and one of the main reasons why most were considered kin-jutsu. Normal healing jutsu leaves scars, but they don't cut years off one's life like regeneration jutsu does. They merely encourage the body to speed up its own repair work.

What really interested Sakura was that Ino had said Tsunade-sama herself believed Naruto's body didn't heal like either regeneration or healing jutsu. Not only could the boy regenerate body tissue with ease, but there was no damage left behind afterwards, whether in the form of a scar or on the cellular level. He'd be able to live out a natural lifespan no matter how often he got himself busted up, unless something killed him immediately, of course. The possibilities of such an ability were amazing. Sakura believed that since it was linked to chakra use, there was the chance that it might work for someone else as well. If more shinobi could heal themselves like Naruto, then the Leaf would gain a major edge against their enemies.

Of course, Sakura had to figure out how the damn thing worked first. Between the lack of records and the fact that Naruto was currently healing at a normal human rate, her research wasn't going very well. She was also getting a headache from Inner Sakura yelling, "Duh!" inside her head all the time over her previous ignorance. It was pretty embarrassing that she'd worked with Naruto for half a year before his training trip and she'd never once noticed that he had such a powerful ability, despite all the blatant clues otherwise.

The more Sakura thought about it, the more little details kept popping up from her memories. There was that time in Wave Country when they all thought he'd be down for days after overtraining himself to exhaustion, then the next day he'd shown up to the bridge fight perfectly refreshed. He'd been cut up almost as bad as Sasuke from that Haku guy/chick's needle attacks, but where her dark-haired teammate needed at least a week to recover from the wounds and fake-death, Naruto had been without injury and bouncing around later that same day. That was weird, but nobody seemed to think much of it so she had put it out of her mind (read: Sasuke hadn't thought of it and he never missed _anything_, so she didn't think anything was weird about it either.) It was the chuunin exams, though, that really caused Inner Sakura to go haywire.

Naruto had been cut across the cheek by one of the examiners and it had been deep enough to need butterfly strips put over it. The cut was gone by the end of the day. It was right in front of them the whole time and neither she nor Sasuke had noticed a thing (read: Sasuke was thinking too much about Orochimaru's seal and Sakura was thinking too much about Sasuke.) For Kami's sake, Sasuke had used the cut to find an imposter! It was downright embarrassing that neither of them noticed. Most obvious of all would be the day of the chuunin finals and the invasion. All of Naruto's chakra points had been sealed by Neji and he was still able to beat both him and the transformed Gaara.

Sakura had treated people injured by Hyuugas before and she knew first hand that while chakra opening points will heal naturally, it would take them many days or even weeks to fully recover. Having been mauled by a genius of the clan, Naruto should have been immobilized for at least six days after that. Instead he'd managed to turn the fight on end and win. She didn't know how she could have missed all these little details, but now that she knew about his ability, it held her fascinated like any self-respecting medic should be. If Naruto's inner coils stabilized soon, then she'd be able to watch it as it worked, hopefully. Whenever the hell that happened.

Even unconscious, Naruto retained the ability to frustrate the hell out of her.

Sakura sighed and put her scrolls away before leaving her room and locking it. Today had been training with the Hokage in the morning, so she didn't have to make any rounds in the hospital. That gave her some free time to check on Naruto again. True, she was fascinated by his healing ability, but she also worried about him and it reassured her to check in on him often, even if it was a bit silly. It was also nice to talk to Kakashi, who was only now recovering fully from his chakra exhaustion (though she suspected he'd been pretty much fine for the past week and was reluctant to abandon his guard post.) He was still hanging around the hospital room most of the time, though he was supposed to be going back on active duty tomorrow and an ANBU guard would soon be assigned to take over his post. She wanted to see the jounin again before he left on his missions. He'd be gone for Kami-sama only knows how long and she had no idea when she'd get to see him again. Ino would probably be in too, as the blonde girl made sure to see Naruto once a day and often kept Kakashi company for several hours if she had no missions to go on.

Sakura was actually surprised that her quick-tempered friend got along so well with the laid back, semi-perverted Copy-Ninja. It was still a little odd to walk in on the two discussing various shinobi related topics. She was slightly jealous, as Kakashi seemed to have opened up more to Ino than he ever had with Team 7. Then again, who knew the reason behind that? Despite his personality, Kakashi was as mysterious as a deep, cold mountain-lake and only he truly knew what his motives were. Still, Ino beating her in any way was quite annoying, even if they were getting along better and there wasn't an actual competition to begin with.

Sakura pushed her thoughts aside as she stepped out of the stairwell and onto the IC floor.

Walking down the fourth floor, the medic idly noted the strange looks on the faces of the medics and nurses stationed there. Ever since Naruto came in, the entire IC ward had been acting twitchy. _Literally_. At least three people had suddenly developed overnight facial tics, two people had resigned their duties, and _everyone_ jumped or flinched when someone said 'Hokage' or 'Tsunade-sama.' Sakura wasn't exactly sure why the medical staff of the IC ward was suddenly so terrified of her mentor, but it might have something to do with the odd display that had been put in the staff lounge of the floor.

A life-sized, human model (the plastic kind with removable organs) was hanging by its neck from the ceiling with several kunai rammed up its butt. The fact that the dummy had no natural orifice there hadn't deterred the vandal in the slightest. Sakura had been appalled at the sight, but when she'd suggested they take it down before Tsunade-sama saw it, all the staff present had turned a sickly shade of greenish-white and declined as politely as they could. It was starting to get kind of creepy with the nurses constantly looking over their shoulders all the time, like a bunch of hunted animals, while muttering, "Supreme Tai-jutsu Technique." And when Tsunade-sama actually set foot in the ward the staff looked so nervous that the chuunin half expected them all to collectively puke. Sakura didn't know the connection between the dummy and her mentor and, to be honest, she didn't _want_ to know.

Tsunade-sama was scary enough already without that kind of mental image.

Finally reaching Naruto's door, Sakura pulled it open just in time to hear, "-so I threw a smoke bomb at him, got in front of him, and then I torched the bastard's face with that Katon jutsu you taught me. I thought Shikamaru and Chouji were going to pass out from shock. It was great!"

Sakura frowned, a little puzzled as she stepped inside and closed the door. Ino was talking excitedly to Kakashi, waving her hands every now and then to emphasize a point. The jounin appeared to be his usual lazy self, but the medic had known him long enough to know that he was actually very interested in the blonde's story. Sakura pushed down another irrational surge of jealousy. The only other genin Kakashi had been so attentive towards was Sasuke and even then he'd been more reserved towards the Uchiha survivor. Of course, Sasuke's arrogance made it hard to open up to him, so that wasn't really an accurate comparison. Either way, it annoyed her that Ino had somehow gotten the mysterious 'Copy-Cat Kakashi' to open up more in a week and a half than he had towards her in the entire two years she'd known him.

"And then what? I take it that didn't beat him?" Kakashi asked, as he gave Sakura a glance and nod in greeting. The medic walked past him towards Naruto's bed, deliberately ignoring Ino (though even Inner Sakura admitted it was childish.) She was just about to start the standard diagnostic jutsu on the blonde's prone form when the other blonde present gave a response that stopped her in her tracks.

"Err, no. Actually, I got the shit beat out of me before Asuma-sensei knocked him out. I hurt him pretty badly, but I still couldn't beat him in the end. Still, a bum leg's worth a captured enemy, right?" Ino replied, disappointment and pride both making an odd combination in her voice.

"Hmm, well hopefully Ibiki-san wi-"

"You WHAT?" Sakura shrieked, totally drowning out Kakashi's response. The other two shinobi looked up at her in surprise. Ino's "What the Well Is Your Problem" glare was weakened by the fact that her right eye was swollen almost entirely shut and ranged in colors from blue to purple to greenish-yellow. It looked like it hurt like a bitch. "Kami-sama! What happened?"

"I just said what happened, Forehead. I got an enemy-nin and he got me back," Ino said in her usual sharp voice. "I'd rather be me than him though. That crazy scarred guy from the exams looked _very_ happy to get his hands on a live Sound-nin."

"I imagine he did. I wouldn't be surprised if he thanked you in the next couple of days," Kakashi said thoughtfully. Sakura held back a wince at the memory of Ibiki's mutilated head and what kind of horrors the man was probably unleashing on his 'guest' even as they spoke. Ignoring the shiver crawling up her spine, she walked over to sit on the couch next to Ino and turned her friend's face towards her.

"Hmph. Don't get so proud just because you caught an enemy, Pig. You still got beat up. If Asuma-san hadn't been there…" Sakura muttered as she made a few seals and pressed her glowing fingers onto the bruised flesh. Ino cut off her instinctive sarcastic retort before it could fully form. The medic's voice was sharp with worry rather than arrogance. She winced at the sharp finger on her damaged skin, but relaxed as the healing chakra flowed into flesh and began to mend it back together. She had to admit it felt pretty good. Sakura could make a killing if she ever became a masseuse.

"Well, I thought it was worth it," Ino replied. Her eye could already open on its own now. Looking towards Kakashi, she asked, "You think we'll get anything useful out of him?"

"Oh, Ibiki-san will get _everything_ out of him, I assure you. Whether it's useful or not, that's another story," The jounin replied as he leaned back and scratched his masked chin. "What rank is he?"

"He was the leader, so I'm guessing chuunin at least. Though, who knows with the Sound what kind of info they give that rank. I do know he wasn't one of those Curse Seal freaks that Shikamaru told me about," Ino said in a lighter voice. She was enjoying the lack of burning pain in her face. Sakura seemed almost done with the jutsu already.

"Hmm, then he probably wasn't told much then. No matter, something is better than nothing and even if he doesn't think it's useful, we may be able to figure out part of Orochimaru's plans from the information he gives up. Reading underneath the underneath and all that," Kakashi said. His eye narrowed thoughtfully as he asked, "Why did they attack you anyways?"

Ino snorted in anger, almost dislodging Sakura's fingers.

"The arrogant shits actually said that it was open season on any Leaf-nins found outside of Fire Country! They said it was something about 'teaching the old hag a lesson in humility.' What the hell is that all about? So they can go anywhere they please and we can't just cause some arrogant traitor says so? Who the hell does he think he is?" The blonde girl snarled. Sakura pulled away her hands.

"All done, though it'll still be a little sore for a few days. Where else are you hurt?" The medic questioned, seemingly ignoring her friend's heated statement. In truth, she was angered by it as well. Not only had the bastard stolen Sasuke from them, but now he was openly hunting her comrades. A mental image of Inner Sakura dancing around a bonfire holding a pike with Orochimaru's head on it managed to bring a slight smile to her face.

"He kicked my knee almost entirely out of place, but I held up against him enough that he couldn't do anything else until Asuma-sensei got there. Took him a minute to find me with all the smoke and fire everywhere," Ino replied. She sighed in relief when Sakura started healing her leg as well. It had gotten worse walking to the hospital to the point that she'd planned on having it looked at anyways had she not run into her friend. She looked up at Kakashi, who was visibly displeased with her news. "Well, Hatake? I think it's the most stuck-up bullshit I've ever heard. What about you?"

The jounin sighed before replying, "There are several layers to Orochimaru's declaration, from what I can tell. Overall, this weakens the Leaf's position. He can sit back and let his cronies pick off our shinobi bit by bit and weaken our forces over time. Eventually, we won't have enough ninja to perform out of country missions. We'll be effectively corralled into our own territory and be little more than sitting ducks without active intelligence. His declaration will also hurt us financially, as clients will be reluctant to hire us if every Leaf-nin is targeted automatically. It's bad enough dealing with the standard opposition during a mission, but having an outside force actively hunting for you will make most people think twice about coming to us when they have better odds of getting the job safely done with another Hidden Village."

"But can't we just do the same and kill every Sound-nin we find?" Ino asked, feeling her earlier elation fade at this news. She was surprised when Kakashi _and_ Sakura shook their heads 'no.'

"We don't have the forces. Between the double assault of the Sand and Sound during the invasion, we lost almost half our forces," Sakura answered as she worked on Ino's knee. "We even had to shut down the academy for a year just to keep up with our mission requests. We're still only at about 65 percent our original active shinobi. Even with fresh genins graduating, we just can't build our forces up fast enough."

"Exactly," Kakashi jumped in. "Leaf-nins only come from the youngest generation in Konoha and some of the other villages in Fire Country. Orochimaru, on the other hand, takes in missing-nins from all other countries to form his ranks. They're mostly cannon-fodder, but even if they're weak a large group of them can overwhelm stronger shinobi. Orochimaru can afford to lose three nins for every one of ours he kills. He has a large and near constant supply to replenish his forces. We don't."

Ino grimaced and asked, "What other part of his little plan hurts us?"

"Psychological warfare," Sakura answered as she stood up to get a knee brace from one of the cupboards. As she turned around, she saw the other shinobi looking at her strangely. "What?"

"You just seem to know an awful lot about military strategy, Forehead," Ino replied, raising her freshly healed eyebrow in question.

Sakura flushed slightly as she replied, "Well, I _am_ the Hokage's apprentice. I hear a lot of stuff when I'm at the Tower."

"Reeeeally," Kakashi drawled in amusement. He chuckled when Sakura's blush darkened, but sobered a moment later. "Unfortunately, Sakura is exactly correct. With his declaration, Orochimaru has bolstered his image in front of his own people while at the same time putting pressure on us. Leaf-nins will be more paranoid and nervous from now on when leaving Fire Country, which can lead to panic and mistakes. They'll also have a false sense of security within our own borders. Both of these mind sets will be easily taken advantage of by a sennin as experienced as Orochimaru."

Ino frowned and said, "Shit."

"I couldn't agree more," Sakura muttered. She changed the subject by gesturing for Ino to stretch her leg out. "You had a small, hairline fracture at the lower end of your femur. I healed most of it and got rid of the swelling, but you should still wear this brace for at least three or four days. Make sure you don't do anything strenuous for awhile and it'll be fine."

Ino gave her friend a grateful smile as the medic slid the brace up her leg and strapped it down over the bandages that were already covering her limb.

"Not bad, Forehead. Keep it up and you'll be Chief Medic someday," She said as she stood and took a few experimental steps, testing her weight on her leg. She was pleased to find that there was no pain at all. Still, she wouldn't be able to go tree-walking later that evening like she'd been planning. Oh well, she'd just keep practicing her new fire jutsu. She could already perform it a couple more times than when she'd first learned it and was really proud of herself. She hadn't gotten far with her gen-jutsu, but Kakashi had advised her to build up control and stamina before she started in on that anyways. The blonde turned and gave a genuine smile to her friend. "Thanks, Sakura."

"Hmph. You can thank me by being more careful in the future," The medic grumbled as she sat down on the couch. There was no heat to her words though. Ino sat down next to her, just as Kakashi stood up and walked to the door.

"Hey Hatake, where're you going?" The genin asked. The Copy-Ninja paused just as he was opening the door.

"I want to go ask Tsunade-sama a couple questions and to see if Ibiki-san has gotten anything useful yet," He replied.

Ino nodded and asked, "We still on for Saturday?"

Sakura blinked in surprise at her friend as Kakashi shrugged.

"I think so, but since I'm back on active duty tomorrow, I have to start going on missions again. My backlog may take awhile to clear up," The jounin answered.

"Fine, but let me know if you're in town so I don't wait around for three hours thinking you're late," Ino retorted. Kakashi gave her an eye-smile and nodded before disappearing out the door. The genin closed her eyes and leaned back with a satisfied smirk on her face, only to be interrupted by Sakura's 'ahem.'

"What, Forehead?" Ino grumbled, cracking an eye open at her rival. Sakura was glaring at her with her arms crossed and with a raised eyebrow.

"Well?" When her blonde friend raised an eyebrow as if to say, "Well, what?" Sakura prompted, "What are you meeting Kakashi-sensei for? You've been awfully friendly with him since Naruto was brought in. He's taught you a jutsu and now you're meeting with him on the weekend. What's going on?"

Ino merely gave an amused smirk at the obvious confusion and jealously in her friend's voice. Sakura mistook the 'I Know Something You Don't' grin for an 'I've Been Doing Something Naughty and I Like It' grin.

The medic gasped and exclaimed, "Kami-sama! You're having an affair with him! Y-You…PIG!"

Ino burst out laughing at the statement and her friend's expression.

"And they say us blondes are dumb," She said, haughtily grinning at her rival.

Sakura's forehead got a confused wrinkle that Ino found very cute as she asked, "You're…_not_ having an affair?"

The genin snorted and replied, "Of course not, you ditz. I like Hatake, but he's too much of a flake to get involved with. Not to mention he's a decade and a half older than me."

The medic's confusion slowly faded, only to be replaced by a look of annoyance.

"So why _are_ you hanging around him so much?" Sakura asked. Ino didn't think 'Annoyed Sakura' was anywhere near as cute as 'Confused Sakura,' but it was still worth it to tease her.

"That's…" She paused, causing her friend to lean forward in anticipation. Ino smirked and said the one thing sure to start a fight. "None of your business, Big-Forehead."

Amidst the ensuing scuffle and outraged shrieks, neither girl glanced over at the only permanent occupant of the room. If they had, they would have noticed something unusual. If Sakura had started her diagnostic jutsu earlier, she would have _definitely_ noticed something strange. But she hadn't and neither of the girls even glanced at the blonde boy lying on the bed, totally missing something out of norm happening.

Naruto's hand twitched.

The kunoichi were oblivious to the boy's first real action in almost two weeks. They were also unaware of the strange things happening in his head right at that moment.

Most of all, they were completely ignorant that things were about to drastically change yet _again_.

* * *

His eyes slowly slid open, as the sounds of dripping water echoed into his ears. Almost immediately, his eyes closed again of their own accord. Fighting against the heavy, burning feeling that seemed to be pushing his eyelids shut, he slowly managed to force them open and keep them that way. For a long time, he stared at the dingy ceiling above him without moving. Finally, he struggled to sit up. It took much longer than he expected. He felt sore and sluggish all over, not at all like he usually did. It took him a bit of time to finally sit up all the way and when he did, it was all he could do not to fall back over. He settled for leaning his chest against his knees as he rested.

'What the hell? Where am I?' Uzumaki Naruto thought as he took stock of his surroundings. He was sitting in a long, dark hallway. It looked like an underground maintenance tunnel of some sort, with rusty pipes running along the ceiling and water dripping to the floor. If it actually was a service tunnel, then it would be in violation of at least a dozen safety codes. As it was, it was just proof that Naruto's mind was in sore need of cleaning. How one actually went about cleaning a mind, he had no idea.

'Shit, what am I doing back here? Last thing I remember was being in the forest and then…'

Naruto's face twisted in a grimace as memories of the Akatsuki ambush assaulted him. Burning shame rose up in him at his defeat, but he forced it back down using cold logic he had learned from Jiraiya.

'Nothing I could have done. They were stronger and I was already out of chakra. Then that seal thing hit me and even the fox couldn't help.'

Naruto's head snapped up. The fox. Maybe the Kyuubi could tell him what had happened and, more importantly, what that weird seal had done to him. If he hurt this bad inside his own head, then how badly was he injured on the outside?

The boy stiffly moved onto all fours as he slowly tried to get to his feet. Not only feeling sluggish, but clumsy as well, he slipped and fell forward. Instinctively, he threw out a hand to catch himself, only to have it land in a dark puddle on the floor. As his hand touched the cold liquid, Naruto's eyes shot open wide as-

"**_-an't have _him_ becoming a shino-"_**

"_**-play with me? Pleas-"**_

"_**-ou are the Kyuubi!"**_

"_**-et out of here, demo-"**_

"_**-ilthy demon. Should've kill-"**_

"_**-way from my child, demon!"**_

"_**-emon."**_

"**_Demo-"_**

"_**Demon."**_

"_**Demon!"**_

"_**DEMON!"**_

Naruto let out a surprised scream and jerked his hand back. He rolled back away from the puddle and clenched his hand to his chest. His arm was so cold it had gone numb and he desperately tried to warm it with his other hand. Shaky little whimpers leaked out of the boy as imaged filled his mind. Memories of his childhood flooded into him, the cold stares, the heated whispers, the _loneliness_, it all came rushing back at once. He couldn't force it from his mind, the images taunting him like specters. A terrible, empty darkness began growing around him, fading everything else away. Eventually even the images of his tormentors grew distant. Even they were ignoring him. He was alone again. _Alone_.

Fear grew in him, dark and powerful. The puddle swelled around him, flooding the hall and leaving him on an island that was rapidly shrinking. He tried to squirm away from the painful memories swimming beneath the surface of the water, but he was surrounded on all sides. Huddling down in the center of the island, he gritted his teeth as the first freezing drops began to soak through his clothes and onto his skin.

"I'm not alone! I have people who see me! They acknowledge me! Iruka-sensei! The old geezer! Baa-chan! Ero-sennin!" Naruto screamed out before he even realized what he was doing. It didn't work. The water was brushing him on all sides now, numbing him through his clothes. He gritted his teeth and drew up all his strength, determination, and bull-headed stubbornness.

"They care about me! I have a family! I'm not alone! They're my FAMILY!" He roared, not even knowing why he was screaming nor was he consciously aware of forming the words leaving his mouth.

Instantly, the water evaporated around him as if it had never been there. Feeling slowly returned to his body and he was able to uncurl from the ball he had wrapped himself into. Naruto lay on his back, gasping as if he'd gone twenty miles at a dead-run. Slowly, he forced himself into a sitting position and let his head hang as he regained his strength. He looked up, his sharp blue eyes noticing the total lack of water anywhere in his sight range. Rolling onto his hands and knees again, the boy crawled to a wall and used it to slowly force himself upright. Still panting, he leaned back against it and managed to choke out one sentence.

"What the _fuck_ was that?"

At least he wasn't even remotely drowsy anymore, he ruefully noted. Pushing himself off the wall, Naruto staggered a few steps, noticing that even if he wasn't sleepy, he was still bone tired. He glanced down both ways of the corridor he stood in. The shadows seemed unnaturally thick both ways, like there was a circle of faint light surrounding him. He could only see roughly ten feet in either direction and, from what he could tell, it looked the same either way he chose to go. Lacking any sense of direction in his mind, Naruto just picked a path and started walking.

Disappearing into the shadows of his own mind, Naruto grumbled over the fact that he'd ever bothered to wake up.

* * *

"Ino…Hey, Ino. Pig, wake up!"

Ino jerked awake, nearly falling onto the floor. She blearily looked up her pink-haired rival, trying to figure out what was going on. The way Sakura was standing with her hands on her hips and glaring at her reminded her of- Ah, there it was. Their argument. After their squabble, Sakura had wandered off to other parts of the hospital to do whatever it is that medics do. Ino had been sitting on the couch in Naruto's room thinking that the window had a nice view of the forest when… She must have dozed off. Well, at least she hadn't drooled on herself. The blond girl yawned and sat up on the couch, before looking up at her friend.

"What do you want, Forehead?" Ino grumbled, rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes.

Sakura rolled her eyes and said, "I thought you might want to get some dinner at the cafeteria."

Dinner? But it was still pretty early in the afternoon. Glancing out the window, Ino noticed with some surprise that it was actually getting later into evening. The sun was much closer to the horizon than when she'd last looked out over the forest. Her stomach rumbled a little, supporting the argument that it was dinnertime.

"Damn, I didn't think I'd fall asleep," The genin muttered, as she stood up. Ino stretched and then twisted her head from side to side, loudly cracking her neck. Sakura shuddered at the sound and glared at her friend.

"Do you have any idea how nasty that is?" She hissed. Ino snorted and walked over towards Naruto's bed.

"Wimp," She casually replied as she looked at the boy. "How do you think he's doing?"

"Bitch," Sakura grumbled as she picked up the chart at the foot of the bed. "Seems like he's doing okay. Well, he's not getting any worse at least. The chart says that his chakra coils are stabilizing some, though no one has any idea how long it'll be before they're back to normal. Still, it's progress."

"I see," Ino quietly said, staring down at the comatose boy. Sakura set the chart back in place before tugging on her friend's dress.

"Come on, I'm hungry. I haven't eaten for hours and I'm starved!" She said, deliberately keeping her tone upbeat. Her attempt didn't work as well as Naruto's would have, but it still brought a small smile to Ino's face.

"Like you need any more mass going to that forehead of yours," The genin replied with a smirk. She ducked out of the room quickly, laughing at the stormy look on Sakura's face. If the medic had looked back at the exact moment she rushed out of the room, she would have noticed Naruto's face twitch. As it was, she totally missed it. Understandable, since she was too busy chasing Ino down the hall.

Funny how things work out like that.

* * *

Naruto stood in the corridor of his mind, staring down at the inky black obstacle blocking his way. Soon after he'd started walking, he came to this place where his path was cut off by a large puddle of black water. His earlier experience made him understandably wary at having any sort of contact with the fluid. Unfortunately, it looked like the only way he could progress further was to cross it. The puddle was about twenty feet long and covered the floor wall to wall. It was jet black and there was a slight disturbance on its surface, almost like it was humming. Very small ripples moved across it, hinting at some unknown agitation. He seriously did _not_ want to go anywhere near the stuff.

Naruto glanced at the walls and the ceiling. His body was still sluggish and he couldn't sense his chakra in any way, so it was unlikely he could stick to the walls to cross. Besides, this was all inside his mind. He wouldn't be able to use chakra in here anyways. He frowned and carefully gauged his odds of success if he were to jump. He snorted. Feeling as shitty as he did, Naruto's odds of hopping this pool were about the same as Jiraiya becoming a monk.

_Not_ going to happen.

Naruto turned and glanced back the way he came. He noted with dismay that his circle of light seemed to have shrunk on that side and the veil-like shadows were only a couple feet behind him. Something was encouraging him to move forward and it wasn't being very subtle about its hints. The boy shifted his attention back to the dark, creepy water in front of him. It seemed he had little choice but to walk through it, unless he wanted to sit here until he finally woke up for real. Kami only knows how long that would take.

"Creepy Puddle of Doom it is," Naruto said loudly. What can he say? Making noise helped him think. So what could he expect from this nasty crap?

Alright, the ero-sennin was always on his case to think things through logically, so he'd give that a shot. Damn. Thinking was not his strong point. Still, Jiraiya had managed to get a few things through his skull during the past couple years. Making a list of what he knew seemed like a good idea.

Naruto sat down on the floor cross-legged and starting ticking things off out loud.

"Alright, this stuff makes me see weird shit and it hurts like hell. Touching it is a _bad_ thing."

Okay, so maybe his list wasn't very long. But Naruto at least knew that the experience would be an unpleasant one. So how could he prepare himself? Well, the first set of memories faded when he screamed out the names of the people he loved, right? Or was it when he denied being alone? Or maybe it wa-

"Shit!" Naruto yelled and jumped to his feet. "Screw this! I'm just gonna do it. This thinking crap is too boring!"

With that, the boy marched right up to the edge of the puddle and stared down at the surface. Bracing himself for a terrible cold, he took a step into the water. To his utmost surprise, it was barely deep enough to get the bottom of his sandal-boot wet. It didn't even touch his exposed toes. He grinned in relief and took another step. Same thing happened.

"Ha! You can't beat me, Puddle of Doom!" Naruto yelled triumphantly as he took several more steps forward, still looking at his feet.

"You're loud, dobe."

Naruto looked up from the dark water underneath him to see a large mass of the water rising up several feet in front of him. At first it looked like a black blob of jelly, but it quickly took shape and became a human figure.

A _familiar_ human figure.

"Sasuke-bastard!" Naruto blurted out. The dark-haired boy in front of him opened his eyes and stared at him. "What the hell are you doing in my head, asshole?"

Sasuke didn't answer. He merely stared at the blonde shinobi. The boy looked exactly like he did the day he left, same outfit, hairstyle, everything. Well, the traitor wasn't smirking, which was weird, but aside from that he looked the same. They stood like that in silence for several long moments. To Naruto's impatient mind it felt like hours.

Finally, the blond boy demanded, "Aren't you going to say something? What the hell are you doi-"

"History lesson time, dobe," Sasuke interrupted. Naruto jumped at the sudden animation of his rival. At least he intended to. His feet seemed stuck and wouldn't move no matter how hard he pulled. Pulling on his legs with his hands didn't help any either. He looked up at Sasuke and tried to jerk backwards. The boy had activated his Sharingan and was now sneering down at the blonde like he was some worthless insect. Naruto blinked. Down at him? Was his rival getting taller? He looked down in panic.

No, _he_ was sinking.

Jerking as desperately as a fly on adhesive paper, Naruto did his best to escape before the water touched his bare skin.

"Your best, dobe? Trying your hardest? Doesn't matter. Your best never has and never will compare to me," Sasuke said, interrupting his rival yet again. Naruto opened his mouth to retort, but all that came out was an agonized scream as the floor dropped away and water rushed up his legs to mid-thigh.

Fuck, that _burns_.

This water wasn't cold, it was boiling hot! It seared every bit of Naruto's legs that it touched. Panic took over and he thrashed about trying to get away. He didn't even realize that his legs were now free to move, nor did he notice that he was accidentally moving deeper into the water and not out of it. Distracted by the agony, Naruto didn't even notice he was wandering closer to Sasuke until his rival grabbed his head.

"You'll never learn, moron," The pale boy muttered, maintained an iron grip on the other boy's blonde hair.

Then he shoved Naruto's face down into the water.

* * *

Ino screamed as she jerked awake. She thrashed about in her sheets for several moments before she realized that she wasn't actually being burned alive. The blonde girl sat up, panting as sweat ran down her entire body. Looking around, she realized she was in her room above the flower shop and it was still early in the evening. The twilight obscured most of her room from sight, but enough light came from the streetlamp outside that she could recognize the place even through the post-nightmare confusion.

Kami, why did her legs and face burn?

Gingerly, Ino reached up and prodded the flesh on her face, expecting the pain to worsen like it would had it actually been burned. To her surprise, all she felt was smooth, sweaty skin. The pain didn't get worse, nor was there any physical sign of burns. She threw her sheets back and let her feet hang off the side of the bed, thankful she had left the window open before going to sleep that night. The cool, nighttime spring air felt wonderful on her throbbing limbs as she sat there with her head slumped forward.

A loud knock on her door make Ino jump and she quickly double checked to make sure she was dressed. She had torn her pajama bottoms off when she was thrashing about, but she still wore her over sized t-shirt and that was presentable enough.

"Ino-chan? Are you alright?" Her mother's voice came as the woman slid the door open. Ino blinked as the harsh glare from the hall shined into her room and across her bed.

"I'm fine, Mom," She replied in a hoarse voice, holding her hand in front of her face to block some of the light. As if her head didn't hurt enough. "I just had a nightmare."

"Oh. Are you alright, sweetie?" Her mother asked. "I thought you were being attacked by someone. I've never heard you scream like that before."

"Well, I've never had a dream like that before," Ino grumbled in response, though it was mostly to herself.

"I see," Her mother paused for a moment. "Do you want to talk about it?"

What could she say? 'Mom, I had a really weird dream where I was being boiled alive and my body still hurts even now.' Yeah, _that_ would go over real well. Hello therapy bills.

"No, it's fine. I'm just going to take a quick shower and go back to sleep," Ino said. She did _not_ want to talk about this to an overprotective parent.

Her mother hesitated for a long moment, obviously reluctant to leave.

"Are you sure?" She asked, worry evident in her tone.

"Yes, Mom, I'm fine. I'll see you tomorrow," Ino replied, effectively cutting off the conversation. All she wanted to do was get under some cold water and go back to bed.

Her mother was silent for some time. Ino was beginning to fear her parent would never leave, when she finally said, "Alright. You go take shower and I'll change the sheets. If you change your mind tell me, okay?"

Ino started to protest, but cut herself off when she realized that she had soaked the bed in sweat. It wouldn't be pleasant trying to sleep on it the way it was. She nodded slowly and replied, "Okay. Thanks Mom. I'll see you in the morning."

The blonde girl slowly dragged herself upright, her legs still hurting, and made her way past her mother and into the bathroom. Ino deliberately avoided the older woman's gaze, not wanting to give her parent more reason to worry in case her eyes were bloodshot to all hell. She set up the shower and made damn sure it was cold before she got into it (if she developed a phobia to hot water because of some stupid freaky dream, heads would roll.) The water froze most of her, but to her face and legs it was pure heaven.

And then Ino was suddenly cold all over, rather than just the non-'burned' areas. The heat that had seemed saturated into her flesh just up and vanished in moments. Ino blinked and felt her face and legs in confusion. What the hell? So now she was perfectly fine? Shivering, she adjusted the water till it was mildly warm and washed off quickly. She completely blocked any questions about what was going on from her mind. She'd deal with it later, after she'd gotten a full night of sleep.

By the time Ino stepped back into her room, her mother had already changed her sheets and left. She felt a little guilty about pushing the older woman away, but her dream just wasn't something she was comfortable discussing. She quickly changed into fresh pajamas before she got into bed. Lying back, she made a mental note to thank her mother again in the morning for replacing her sheets. The cool cotton felt wonderful against her legs after what they'd been through.

Ino frowned as she stared up at her dark ceiling. That was just freaking _weird_. Her dreams had never affected her like that before. What the hell did it mean if what she felt in her nightmares carried over into the waking world? Were her premonitions growing stronger? Was it just a fluke? Was she ever going to ignore this crap like she should and just go to sleep?

'Hmph, I'll just tell Hatake about it in a few days when we meet up. He'd _better_ not be on a mission,' Ino thought to herself. Hopefully Kakashi would be able to help her figure out what was going on. He had advised her to observe her dreams and to take note of anything important happening inside them, but she couldn't really figure out what this one meant. Was one of her friends being burned alive, but only by their legs and face? If so, which one? The last weird dream she'd had that was this unsettling had been about-

Ino sat bolt upright in bed. Naruto? Was something happening to Naruto?

Even before the thought fully formed in her head, Ino was already shaking her head and lying back down. It couldn't be him. True, he got himself into a lot of trouble and he'd done some dumb things that had made _her_ want to boil him alive, but he was in the Intensive Care ward of a hospital with an ANBU guard stationed outside his room. With how protective the Hokage was of the boy, there was no way anyone was going to allow harm to come to him. Besides, not even _Naruto _could get into trouble while lying in a coma.

…Right?

* * *

Pain was all Naruto knew. And agony. And torment. And g_oddammit_ it-hurts-it-hurts-it-hurts! Mostly though, he knew pain. His face was about to melt off, he was sure of it. In fact, he was surprised it hadn't already. Sasuke's iron grip wasn't budging an inch and Naruto found that no matter how hard he squirmed, he couldn't pull his face up from the black water it was immersed in. Even as he struggled, he could feel the memories coming up. They forced their way into his mind, twisting and roiling almost as if they were boiling instead of the water. The images assaulted his mind's eye even as the voices hammered into his skull.

"**_-ve become my closest frien-"_**

"_**-orth it to kill yo-"**_

"_**-lright, Scaredy-Ca-"**_

"_**-ike having a brot-"**_

"_**-lso want to fight you-"**_

"_**-SPECIALER THAN YO-"**_

"**_-on't understand what it's li-"_**

"_**-do you know about it, Dead-La-"**_

"**_-ou get better than m-"_**

"_**-moro-"**_

"_**-diot-"**_

"_**-ad-Las-"**_

"_**-dumb-ass-"**_

"_**-loser-"**_

"_**-dobe."**_

"_**Dobe!"**_

"_**DOBE!"**_

A fire ignited inside Naruto that had nothing to do with the boiling water he was standing in. With an inarticulate roar of rage he shoved himself upwards, throwing Sasuke back as he did so. The burning pain was partially ignored as he sloshed towards his rival as the dark-haired boy stood back up on the surface of the water.

"You know what! Fuck you, you stuck up, insecure little shit!" Naruto bellowed as he jabbed his finger into Sasuke's chest. He barely noticed that his hand sunk right into the Uchiha's body, with jelly-like water surrounding his fingers instead of flesh and blood. "I don't know what the hell is your problem, but you've been a selfish prick from day one! Where the hell do you get off judging me! What god died and left you in charge! Where the _fuck_ does it say you can boss me around! Who says you're the better just 'cause you're an Uchiha! Answer me, you pasty-faced bastard!"

"Stupid little dobe, still pretending he's a big, bad ninja. I've always been better and I always will be. You're just a pathetic genin pretending he's somebody important," Sasuke replied, pulling Naruto's hand out of his chest and shoving the other boy backwards. The blonde kept his balance and focused on his rage to keep the burning pain at bay. Sasuke kneeled on the water's surface and smirked down at him. Naruto was about to wipe the smug look off his face with his fist when something occurred to him.

"I've heard that before, but it wasn't you who said it," He growled out. The burning was making it hard to think. "Kabuto said it to me while you were lying in a coma after your brother kicked your ass. How could you know that?"

Sasuke's face didn't change expression as he retorted, "Who cares if I said it or not? It doesn't change the fact that it's true. You're still the same weak little boy you always were."

"Weak, huh? Weren't you the one that nearly got his arm torn off by Itachi?" Naruto replied in an ice cold tone. Sasuke's face still didn't change. Okay, what the hell was going on? Talking about Itachi _always_ got a rise out of Sasuke. Naruto seriously doubted he'd gotten over his pathetic obsession in just a year or two. Why wasn't he rising to the bait? How did he know Kabuto's phrase? How-

Naruto eyes finally traced down to where Sasuke's feet and knee touched the water. Instead of resting on its surface with chakra, the boy's limbs distorted where they touched the liquid and became the same black color as the water itself. He looked like he was nothing more than an extension of the pool he stood on. Naruto's mind worked furiously to come up with an explanation. Damn, it was hard to think when his legs and face were burning so badly. The memories from the water were still plaguing his thoughts, making it even harder to concentrate.

'…Duh,' Naruto suddenly thought as he slapped his forehead. He really was an idiot.

Memories. That's all these water pools were. They were just a bunch of unpleasant memories. And if the water was a collection of memories, then Sasuke wasn't even real. So he was just wasting his time fighting with this thing and getting himself boiled alive for his trouble.

"Why the hell am I even arguing with you? You're not even the real Sasuke-teme," Naruto said. The other 'boy' remained impassive, though his face reverted to its original blank expression. "This is bullshit. I'm out of here."

The water still burned him, but he could at least block most of the memories now that he knew what they were. Naruto sloshed past 'Sasuke' (keeping well out of range of the doppelganger's hands) and moved towards the far end of the pool. He was two steps away from the edge when the ground beyond suddenly rose up and made a near-vertical wall almost ten feet tall. Shit! He couldn't get out. At least it was shallower here. The water only came up to under his knees. It still hurt, but it was better than before. He glanced about, trying to see if he missed something

"It's not that easy, dobe," 'Sasuke' said. Naruto spun around with a dark scowl on his face.

"What isn't, Sasuke-fake?" He growled out. He _really_ wanted to get out of this stuff and onto dry land. 'Sasuke' just shook his head with a mock-sympathetic look on his face.

"You still don't get, but why does that surprise me? You've always been an idiot," The doppelganger said.

"And you've always been a dick, so we're even. What's your point?" Naruto snarled out.

"My point is you don't just walk away," 'Sasuke' replied, with that aggravating smirk on his face. Naruto sneered at him.

"And how are you going to stop me? Jelly-power?" He taunted.

'Sasuke' only smirked wider. Naruto realized why when he felt the floor at the bottom of the pool turn into a sticky, mud-like material. It was oddly like Jiraiya's Toad Stomach technique. Shit, he was stuck again. The feeling of burning water slowly seeping up his knees quickly made him realize it was worse than that. Great, he was stuck _and_ sinking.

"You know, when I said jelly-power I was being _sarcastic_!" Naruto yelled at 'Sasuke.'

"You never learn. Always lagging behind. So desperate to catch up to me. Pathetic," The doppelganger said, its voice barely more animated than a monotone.

The water was leaking over his knees now. Nothing he did had any effect. He could feel some sort of gummy material closing over his feet, making it even harder to move. Why the hell was this even happening? Didn't Sasuke torment him enough when he was awake? Why did he have to deal with having the arrogant prick in his mind on top of everything else?

"Dammit! You stupid… Fake-Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, displaying his amazing insulting skills. 'Sasuke' didn't even blink in reaction. "Why the hell are you doing this? You're not even real! This is a total waste of time!"

There was a lurch under Naruto's feet as he finished the last statement. The gunky stuff he was standing in loosened and he found he could pull his feet free if he tried hard enough. Yanking his feet out, the blonde boy stumbled backwards towards the barrier wall. He shoved his hand out against it to catch his fall, only to have it stick and sink in. At the same time, his feet started sinking again.

"I told you already, dobe, you don't just walk away," 'Sasuke' said. For an instant, Naruto saw a flash of…_fear_ cross the boy's face. What the hell? As the burning water began to seep over his knees again, the blonde tried to think of an answer.

'Why would Fake-Sasuke be worried? I got stuck again,' Naruto thought. His eyes slowly widened. 'No, I got caught, but for a second there I broke loose. He's worried that I can do it again. So how did I get loose?'

Furiously thinking, Naruto tried to come up with the reason before the water rose any higher (it was getting dangerously close to some _sensitive_ areas.) Was it something he said, like with the first puddle? If so, then what?

Thinking he had the answer, the boy yelled out, "You can't hurt me, dumb-ass! You're not even real!"

Fake-Sasuke didn't even twitch. Naruto clenched his jaw in annoyance. Okay, wrong answer. Damn this was pissing him off.

"ARGH! This sucks! Why am I wasting time on you!" He yelled in anger. Fake-Sasuke flinched as the floor lurched under the blonde's feet. Naruto's hand came loose from the barrier and he rose upwards several inches. His eyes widened. He'd just said it. What was it? Why is the fake getting so nervous? What was it he said that hurt the thing?

It suddenly came to Naruto with the intensity and subtlety of a brick to the side of the head. If he had the vocabulary skills, he would have known to call it an epiphany. He calmly stood up straight and pulled his feet free from the sticky floor without any effort. He stared the Fake-Sasuke in the eyes. That was it. It was the one thing that would piss Sasuke off more than anything.

"You're not worth it. You aren't even pathetic. You're _nothing_," Naruto said with his eyes narrowed.

The Fake-Sasuke jerked like he'd been struck. The floor solidified underneath Naruto's feet and rose till the water reached only mid-shin. Behind him, the wall crumbled and lowered several feet.

"I'm leaving," Naruto said as he turned and walked away from the doppelganger. He grimaced when he approached the barrier. It was low enough for him to reach now, but he'd have to haul himself up. His body was _still_ sore on top of burning where the water had touched him. Though he was learning how to ignore the pain, his body still didn't react how he wanted it to. He seriously doubted he could lift himself up to the ledge. Still, giving up wasn't in his vocabulary.

The wall shuddered and lowered another few inches. It was still too high, but it was a noticeable change. What the hell? Did this thing react to his thoughts? Well, that would make sense considering he was in his mind after all. So what thought was it? Dammit, his head was still so foggy. This whole mess was making him more exhausted, with a splitting headache on top of everything else. It was almost enough to make him sit down and give up.

The barrier shuddered and lowered an inch.

Intelligence wasn't Naruto's forte, but even he could take a hint eventually.

"I…uh, give up?" He hesitantly said. The wall vibrated and a few chips cracked away, but it didn't lower any further. "I said I GIVE UP!"

The barrier shivered, but gave no other reaction.

"Okay, I'm missing something here. The key is giving up, but not in general. So what do I have to give up on?" Naruto muttered to himself. Then he sensed a presence right behind him. He turned and looked almost straight into the eyes of the Sasuke doppelganger. They were almost eye level as the boy was kneeling on the water's surface, his white skin even paler than normal. Fake-Sasuke had little expression on his face, but his now obsidian eyes seemed to be almost…pleading with him.

"No…" Naruto whispered, staring at his rival. Sasuke. Of course. All the memories of this pool were of his rival. He had to give up on Sasuke if he wanted to pass. Could he? _Should_ he? Dammit, this wasn't fair. He'd failed the boy once already. If he gave up, he'd just be failing Sasuke again. He'd even made a promise to the girl he loved. It was up to him to bring the wayward Uchiha back to Konoha.

Or was it?

Naruto gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, as much to concentrate as to avoid looking into the false Uchiha's eyes. The blonde boy's expression shifted and changed for several long minutes as he deliberated over his problem. After a time, his eyes snapped open as he made his decision. From the doppelganger's perspective the blues orbs were sad, determined, and…peaceful in a strange way.

"Since I'll probably never get to tell you this in real life, listen up, okay?" Naruto said, his voice tired, yet calm. "You left. It was your choice, just like it was my choice to try to bring you back. I lost the fight and you left to Orochimaru. It wasn't my fault, it was yours. I'm not going to beat myself up about 'failing' you anymore. _You_ failed _me_, Sasuke. You failed me, just like you failed Sakura-chan, Kakashi-sensei, the entire Leaf, and your dead clan. You only thought of yourself that day. You always think about only yourself. Everyone looked up to you and doted on you and whether or not you liked the attention, you still flashed around the 'Poor Little Avenger' flag to anyone who bothered to look. You had everyone eating out of your hand and when you take off just because things aren't going your way, somehow they all think they're the ones responsible.

"Sakura-chan blames herself for not being able to convince you to stay, Kakashi-sensei thinks he should have taught you better, and all this time I've blamed myself the most. I thought that if I was only strong enough to beat you, it'd change everything. But it wouldn't, because it wouldn't change you and you're the problem in all of this. But you're always the victim, right? It's never _your _fault. But it is your fault. More than that, it was your _choice_, not mine, to go to the snake-freak. I'm done, Sasuke. If you want to use your parents as an excuse to wallow in your little self-pity hell, that's your problem, not mine. Once upon the time, I thought there was good person in you, trying to get out. A person worth fighting and dying for. At the end of our fight, I even thought I saw him for a minute. But then he vanished, because he never existed. Even if he did, _you_ killed him. And while that other Sasuke might've been the best friend I would die a thousand times for, _you _are less than garbage. And since all that's left is _you_, I don't want a damn thing to do with you, Uchiha Sasuke.

"You're not my brother, my friend, my rival, or even my enemy. You're nothing to me anymore. You're a waste of time and I'm through with your crap. I'm through with _you_, Sasuke."

Naruto turned and walked towards the barrier, where it had almost completely lowered. He didn't turn back, though he did pause one last time. Even without looking, he could feel the doppelganger reaching out to him. But of course, only in his imagination would Sasuke ever ask for his help or ever treat him like an equal. The person he had believed Sasuke had never even existed. When he thought about it, it was sad how long it took him to realize that. Sasuke hadn't been his friend for a long time…assuming he was ever his friend to begin with. Hell, he'd tried to murder him in cold-blood and only the Kyuubi's presence had kept that from being a reality. Jiraiya had been right. It was a mistake to be hung up over someone who just didn't give a shit. He should have given up on the boy a long time ago. Sasuke had certainly given up on all of them.

Well, not anymore. He wasn't going to be weighed down by the past and the foolish choices of a selfish boy. He was through. Sasuke meant nothing to him anymore, good or bad. And it really wasn't that painful now that he'd made his choice. It was just one less specter looming over Naruto as he fought his way through life. Kami knew he already had more than enough shit on his plate without dealing with Sasuke's crap on top of it.

Slowly, Naruto tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He sighed, allowing all of his tension to drain away. In a calm, neutral voice he said, "I give up on you."

Naruto started walking again, even as the water evaporated into nothing and Sasuke dissolved into a smoky mist that vanished in seconds. The floor was smooth and his progress unhampered as he walked forward into the shadows.

He didn't look back once.

* * *

An ANBU guard with a cat mask stood outside room 451 in the IC ward. He was a rather inexperienced ANBU, as he'd only made the elite rank a few months back. Being green though wasn't the reason why he was sweating bullets behind his mask, nor was it the reason why his hands were twitching nervously. It wasn't even the fact that the Kyuubi-vessel was lying in a bed less than twenty feet behind him, although that _was_ part of it.

See, this ANBU was still new enough that he didn't know much about the goings on of the higher ups. As it was, he had no idea that the Hokage might actually _like_ the demon-brat. Even worse, it _never_ crossed his mind that the Godaime might not just like the brat, but also love him like a surrogate little brother. He bore quite the grudge against the boy, seeing as he'd lost a good friend during the Kyuubi's attack back when the two of them were still genin. So when he overheard some other ANBU talking about the brat being hospitalized, he'd moseyed on over and gotten into the conversation. One thing led to another and pretty soon, the group was enjoying a round of demon-kid bashing. He'd gotten so into it during his turn of the conversation, that he hadn't noticed his pals' masked faces look up over his shoulder and their laughter suddenly stop like they were being choked. He'd been waving his hands to emphasize a point when he felt a steel-vice clamp onto his shoulder and wrench him around so hard his arm was nearly dislocated.

It was then the ANBU met the burning glare of the Fifth Hokage. He seriously thought an actual demon was standing in front of him.

Tsunade had merely said, "Stay," and moved past him to the other ANBU. He stayed. In fact, he hadn't moved an _inch_ even when he heard several meaty thuds accompanied by the sounds of walls shattering and ninjas squalling in pain behind him. He didn't twitch, not even when half a gorilla mask went flying over his shoulder and clattered on the ground in front of him. After several minutes (read: 3.2 seconds) he felt that horrible vice-hand clamp onto the back of his shirt and drag him down the hall to the Hokage's office.

It's _very_ undignified for an elite ninja like himself to be dragged around on his ass by his commanding officer, but he was strangely unable to voice a complaint. It probably had something to do with the way his throat was locked up tighter than a bathhouse whenever Jiraiya-sama was in town. He couldn't even squeak when Tsunade lifted him up with one hand and casually tossed him into a chair in front of her desk. Tsunade had sat down behind her desk, then proceeded to give the ANBU a thorough explanation of exactly why it was a bad idea to openly talk like that about Naruto in Konoha. The ANBU could only nod to every single thing the Hokage said.

Tsunade-sama was going to cut him some slack this time, seeing as how he's still new. Tsunade-sama understands that he may have lost someone to the Kyuubi, so she'll overlook his unprofessional behavior this time. If he was a good boy from now on, Tsunade-sama might even forget this ever happened. Wasn't that nice of Tsunade-sama? Yes, Tsunade-sama thought so too. Tsunade-sama is a nice person if you stayed on her good side. _However_, if he ever broke the Third's law again Tsunade-sama would _not_ be nice. Tsunade-sama would, in fact, be mean. _Very_ mean. Tsunade-sama didn't think that just because Sandaime was dead, people could run around breaking all the laws he'd made. Especially _that_ one. Didn't he agree? Oh yes, he most certainly _did_ agree with Tsunade-sama. After all, Tsunade-sama was the Hokage and he was just a lowly little ANBU, so it would be very unheal-…_rude_, yes rude, of him to disagree with her. Well, since he was so enthusiastic, Tsunade-sama had a little job for him. See dangerous people were after Naruto and Tsunade-sama didn't like that. Naruto's current guard was going back on active duty tomorrow, so Tsunade-sama thought it would be wise to have an ANBU replace him. Since he so generously offered his services, Tsunade-sama thought that _he_ should be the ANBU that would guard the boy. Tsunade-sama thought he might even learn a little respect for a living human sacrifice. Didn't he agree? Of course he did. But Tsunade-sama felt she should warn him. Naruto had better be alive, unharmed, and present when Tsunade-sama visited him every day.

Or else.

The ANBU had nearly wet himself at the dark look the Hokage had sent his way. Later, he'd found out the close relationship between Tsunade and the boy from a couple of the guards milling about the Hokage Tower. He nearly wet himself again when he realized that he'd insulted every aspect about the boy in front of an over-protective, temperamental, uber-strong woman who was prone to excessive acts of violence, who saw herself as the brat's older sister, and who just so happened to be his_ boss_! Even later, when he entered the hospital to start his guard shift, he'd nearly fainted at the sight of the other ANBU he'd been fooling around with as he passed by an open room. He seriously didn't believe a sandal belonged up _there_. So he'd rushed up to room 451 and had stood at perfect attention for the last three hours, even though he was sweating buckets and really, _really_ had to take a leak. Like a broken record, the phrase, "Or else," kept repeating itself in his head the whole time. He was an absolute nervous wreck and he was seriously considering asking to be demoted back to chuunin when this whole mess was over.

Was it any wonder that he nearly screamed when he felt a flicker of chakra inside the room he was guarding?

Cat-mask turned and rushed inside the room, fully prepared to die protecting the hated demon if it meant he avoided Tsunade's wrath (read: her boot.) He was both relieved and disappointed to find nothing in the shadowy room. Casually, he drew a kunai and he reached over and flicked on the light switch. This time he did scream when he saw a disgusting orange and yellow sea-creature from hell hovering next to the boy's bed, looking ready to attack. He gasped in relief when he realized that it just a bouquet of flowers. The most hideous bouquet he'd ever seen in his life, but still just a bouquet. Really, who could possibly like that much _orange_? He briefly considered moving the poor little daffodil that sat next to the monstrosity, as it seemed like it was about to be devoured at any moment, but decided against it as that would mean moving closer to that freaky thing. He wasn't going to risk the chance that it might actually be a mutant creature that was just disguising itself as a bouquet of flowers and waiting for any careless shinobi to come near it.

The cat-masked ANBU slowly walked over towards the bed, carefully checking out every corner of the room. He even used a couple illusion detection jutsu just to make sure no one was hiding in there. Nothing. The only sounds aside from himself were the boy's steady breathing and the beeping of the heart monitor. Satisfied, he sheathed his kunai and turned to leave. He'd just taken a single step when he felt the chakra again, stronger this time. He whirled towards its source and found himself staring at the bed and its occupant. Cautiously, he approached the still form of the boy.

Only the boy wasn't so still anymore.

What little of the Uzumaki boy's face he could see was twisted in a grimace of pain. The boy's fingers twitched a little and the heart monitor started beeping faster. A few moments passed and the boy was suddenly still, as if nothing had happened. The beeping slowed gradually until it reached its normal pace.

'What the hell? This kid creeps me out. I'm just going to back out of here real slowly and ge-'

The ANBU's inner dialogue was suddenly stopped when he felt the chakra again, only now it was powerful enough that it felt like a physical force had pushed against him. This time the boy clenched his teeth and fisted his hands, as the heart monitor tripled its beeping rate within a few seconds. Tremors of spastic motion shook the kid's bandaged frame for about half a minute before he settled down again. The beeping slowly returned to normal. A minute later and everything was exactly the way it was when he'd first entered the room.

Although the cat-masked ANBU would've liked nothing more than to get the hell out of the room, a sense of duty (read: fear of Tsunade's sandal) forced him to stay and make sure everything was alright. Five long minutes slowly passed as he watched the Uzumaki brat carefully, looking for any other signs of abnormality. Nothing happened. The boy remained peacefully asleep and the room was still except for the medical machines. When it became obvious the boy wasn't going to do anything else, the ANBU finally walked back out the door and retook his post.

There he nearly had a heart attack over what happened. What the hell was _that_? Should he call a nurse? The Hokage? How would he describe it to them? How did he know it wasn't _normal_ for the brat to do that? The kid _was_ a demon after all. Maybe he was just getting his rocks off teasing the poor, unlucky ANBU stuck guarding him.

'Well, it doesn't matter. As long as he's alive and there in the morning, I don't get the shoe. Sandal. Whatever.'

Ah, if only the ANBU in the cat-mask knew what had really happened to the boy. More importantly, if only he knew what was _about_ to happen. If cat-mask knew what was going to happen within the next few hours, he wouldn't just request a demotion.

He'd start running for the hills with his hands over his ass.

* * *

Once again, Naruto found himself at the edge of a dark body of water. Unlike the Creepy Puddle of Doom, this one was big. Really big. The hallway was larger too. For all intents and purposes, he was standing in a massive cave hundreds of feet across with a black lake spanning the size of the room. The cement walls that had dominated his mindscape were now replaced by stalactites, stalagmites, and other weird rock formations everywhere. Only a line of rusty pipes running across the ceiling gave any resemblance to the hallway he'd been walking down. Once again, there didn't seem to be anyway to cross the water except by walking across it. Naruto kneeled down and stuck his face near the liquid, trying to see the bottom.

He jerked backwards when _something_ stared right back at him.

Naruto looked at the water, but the twisted, pale…_something_ was gone. Damn, this place was just freaky. He hadn't even been able to see an inch into the stuff, so he had no way of knowing how deep it was. And if the thing he'd glimpsed in there was any indication, he'd be facing something far worse than an arrogant Sasuke clone. So what should he do?

Naruto flopped down onto his butt. His previous experience had shown that rushing into these things was _not_ a good idea by any means. Okay, ero-sennin was always telling him to think, so he'd think. What had he learned so far? These things were collections of memories that were somehow strong enough to actually hurt him or at least hurt his mental self. Each one seemed to have one theme. The second was obvious. It was about Sasuke and his guilt over his perceived failure to bring the traitor back. The first pool was a little trickier, but he was pretty sure it was all the darkness he'd accumulated as he grew up hated as a demon combined with his horrible phobia of being alone. Each pool hurt him in some way, each had its painful memories, and each had a way to escape it.

No, escape wasn't right. Each had a way to _beat_ it. A key to a puzzle. Each pool was held something he needed to face, accept, and move on from.

Thinking about it, it seemed to make sense. Naruto's greatest fear was to be alone and ignored. The facts didn't fit the fear anymore though and he wasn't anywhere near as lonely as he'd been. He'd managed to collect a small group of people as a surrogate family. People he'd die to protect and would die to protect him. A family that not only acknowledged him, but loved him, just for being him. The more he thought about it, the more he agreed with the idea. Iruka was the older brother-father figure he'd never had. The schoolteacher looked out for him, scolding him when he was being foolish, and listened to all his accomplishments no matter how longwinded and exaggerated they were. The kind older ninja was genuinely interested in Naruto's life and was always concerned for his well being.

Sandaime had always been like a distant, but still affectionate grandfather. The old man had always been too busy to spend much time with Naruto when he was still alive, but the Third had still looked out for him from a distance. Sarutobi would always have a place in Naruto's heart as the first person he remembered that hadn't looked at him with cold eyes. Even Iruka had flinched the first time he'd met Naruto, though of course that had changed over time. Sandaime on the other hand, hadn't even blinked the first time he'd met the Kyuubi-vessel face to face. That meant more to Naruto than words could ever express and even if it cost him his life he'd see Orochimaru pay for the old man's death. A great man like the Third should have died comfortably in his bed and _not_ by the hands of a mad traitor.

Jiraiya hadn't been too close to Naruto at first, but he had evolved over time into something much more. Like Iruka, he too was a father figure of sorts, though unlike Iruka Naruto had no intention of turning out like the old pervert. The Toad Hermit was like the relative everyone is embarrassed about, but still invites to the family reunions because he's was so much fun to be around. Naruto had been stampeded more than once by a mob of angry women trying to get at his sensei, but he still wouldn't trade the Sannin for anything. Jiraiya had always been there for him when it really counted and he owed his life to the pervert several times over. And because of the depraved hermit, he'd met Tsunade.

The older woman filled a maternal role that Naruto had desperately wanted his whole life. She was the big sister that alternately mothered and nagged him depending on his actions. Naruto hadn't even realized how much he'd wanted a mother until he met her. Still, he preferred that she was more of a sister to him, as he'd seen mother figures stifle their kids as they grew older and he didn't want a distance to grow between him and the Slug Sannin. Tsunade was much too fun to stay away from for long. Like Iruka, she had saved his life at the near cost of her own. They'd both saved each others lives by using the time honored method of 'Jump In Front of the Sharp, Pointy Thing Coming at My Friend.' Rather foolish, but hey, neither he nor Tsunade tended to look before they leaped. She meant a great deal to him. All of them did.

Realizing that he had a family (of sorts) had been the key to undoing the first pool and his fear of being alone. Realizing that Sasuke was not his responsibility and giving up on him ever being the person he'd hoped he'd be was the key to the second pool. Fact was, he hadn't realized how much his guilt had been disrupting his focus. Amazing how much clearer he was thinking. Now he had the third pool to deal with, and possibly more beyond. It didn't escape Naruto's notice that the pools had grown stronger and larger as he progressed. He didn't know what that meant exactly, but he did know that this lake in front of him would be far worse than the previous two memory puddles.

'Alright, it'll hurt and I won't be able to keep my wits very well, but all I have to do is find the answer and I'll beat it,' Naruto thought as he got to his feet and stepped up to the edge of the pool. He shivered as he looked down at the still, black water. _Something_ was in there and it scared the living shit out of him, whatever it was.

Naruto took several long, deep breaths to steady his nerves. He gritted his teeth and stepped onto the black surface in front of him, expecting it to be semi-solid like the second pool.

It was quite surprising when instead of touching a solid surface, he simply fell through the black liquid and into the lake with only a single choked scream to mark that he'd been there at all.

Darkness surrounded Naruto on all sides. It wasn't absolute darkness, which somehow would have been better. No, he could see himself and he could see a good fifty feet in either direction before the murky blue-black shadows blocked his vision. _Things_ flickered in and out of his sight, just at the edge of his range of vision. He couldn't make out exactly what the things were, but he knew for a fact that he didn't want them to come any closer. He gasped, as a searing pain spread across his entire body. Briefly he noted he could make muffled sounds in this water and could still breathe, but that thought was driven out by a freezing sensation that was so cold it _burned_ him all over. He jerked and thrashed as he floated there, instinctively trying to get away from his source of torment. He had suffered for several eternal minutes when through the pain he suddenly felt something brush his shoulder, startling the hell out of him.

Naruto turned and stared into Hyuuga Hinata's rotten, waterlogged face that hovered a mere foot from his.

A scream that was only partially muffled tore through the dark water. Naruto jerked and struggled to swim away from the pale, twisted girl in front of him. Hinata's body was staring at him through cold yellow-white orbs that were nothing like her warm lavender-cream colored eyes in real life. Her face was a marbled blue pallor and her flesh hung loosely on her skull, as if she'd been drowned for days. Her normal outfit hung in shredded rags, exposing glimpses of an equally rotten body where ever it shifted. The girl's near skeletal hand was still outstretched towards him even as he tried to put some distance between the two of them. Obviously that was what had touched him. She didn't pursue him, but the Hyuuga didn't retreat either.

Naruto tried, he really did, not to panic. But when more shapes pealed themselves from the shadows and slithered through the water towards him like pale, rotten eels he couldn't contain his fear and let out another terrified scream. One by one, the figures would move up and float near him about fifteen feet away. Each was somebody he'd met in his life and each was as rotten and drowned as Hinata. They surrounded him in a circle and no matter which way he moved, all he saw was the festered stares of his comrades. He turned away from Hinata and found himself facing her cousin.

Neji's eyes had lost little of their intensity, despite being discolored and dead. As Naruto stared at the Hyuuga prodigy, he felt the first memories forcing themselves into his mind.

"_**Become Hokage? Impossible."**_

"_**It's over, loser."**_

"_**You can't escape fate."**_

"_**Is it painful?"**_

"_**Stay on your knees before a power you cannot change."**_

"_**Your destiny was to lose to me."**_

"_**Realize your worthlessness."**_

"**_Fool."_**

Naruto closed his eyes and jerked away from the boy. Damn, these memories weren't just worse, they were more complete. They hit his mind fully, where the previous two pools had been brief snippets and flashes of the past. He was reliving each and every bad memory he had about Neji. And man did he have a lot of rotten memories about Neji. Everything from the way he sadistically cut Hinata down with his words and chakra blows to the taunts and sneers during their fight in the finals. Come to think of it, he had never told Neji what a dick he was. He'd be sure to do that the next time he met the Hyuuga.

Naruto's eyes opened and he nearly fainted. The twisted figures had come closer while he'd had his eyes closed. They stopped moving towards him when his eyes opened and were now staring at him about ten feet away. They were _way_ too close for comfort. It seemed like he had to keep his eyes open and face the humiliating memories or else. He really didn't want to find out what the 'or else' would be.

Turning his head, Naruto found himself staring into Shikamaru's face. He gritted his teeth as the memories hit him.

"_**Just looking at you gets on my nerves."**_

"_**Waste of my time."**_

"_**Totally clueless."**_

"_**Idiot."**_

"_**Moron."**_

He hissed, trying to fight away the humiliation. Shikamaru was his friend, dammit! He may have thought he was an idiot in the beginning, but he respected him as…Okay, so the lazy boy still thought he was an idiot, but at least he thought he was a _competent_ idiot. Apparently, the subconscious doesn't forget that kind of stuff, even if the higher mind has moved on and forgiven it. Naruto made sure his eyes stayed open as he turned away and found himself facing his former teacher, Kakashi. The jounin still wore his mask, but he had both eyes exposed. In his left eye socket where his Sharingan should've been there was only a ripped up red orb that still managed to hold greater intensity than the other eye. A thin plume of blood wafted out from the shredded eye and trailed through the water like a crimson ribbon.

The memories of Kakashi were oddly non-vocal, but they somehow burned worse than Neji and Shikamaru combined. Naruto saw flashes of every time the jounin had looked at him with disappointment in his eye and all the times he had looked towards Sasuke with pride. There were many memories of both. Kakashi had never once berated him or called him an idiot when he didn't deserve it. It wasn't the times the copy-nin scolded him or told him to stop screwing around that got to Naruto. He didn't see any memories like that here, because those didn't bother him. What did bother him were the little things that meant far more than words could convey. All of the images that assaulted him told him two things: Kakashi was proud of Sasuke. He wasn't proud of Naruto.

That cut deeper than he imagined.

He tore his eyes away from his sensei and found himself looking at that flower girl, Ino. He didn't have many vocal memories of her either, but the glares she'd sent his way told him enough. He turned from her and met the eyes of Kiba. Over and over, Naruto would meet someone's eyes and face all the memories he had of that person looking down on him in some way. After Kiba it was Chouji, then it was Kabuto, then it was Jiraiya, then Iruka, Lee, Tsunade, Gaara…The list went on. Hell, even Konohamaru and Inari were there. Each one shredded him a little more, till it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. The last person he stared at made his heart sink. This would be bad.

Sakura.

Naruto had been in love with the girl for a long time, but that didn't prevent him from having some nasty memories of her. He faced every single slight, blow to the head, and insult she ever gave him. Every time she blatantly ignored him for Sasuke, every time she called him a loser, and every time he saw her back walking away from him, his willpower frayed a little more. Just when he thought he couldn't take any more, the last bad memory he had of her crossed his mind and he was free to look away.

Naruto sagged as he floated and drifted downwards. His ego was absolutely and entirely gone. He seriously doubted that it would ever return. His pride had been washed away by an overwhelming wave humiliation like a sand castle at high tide. Damn, it was hard to keep his eyes open. He was exhausted and even the burning-chill was growing more distant. The figures started closing gin on him, their dead hands stretching out towards him. Right as Naruto's eyes were about to close, a flash of dark-blue caught his attention and made him look up.

Hinata.

He had come full circle and was facing the shy girl again. Unlike the other figures coming closer, she merely floated in front of him and stared at him with dead eyes. Focusing on the girl, Naruto waited for the flashes to begin.

And waited. And waited. Just as the first hand clamped onto his arm, Naruto realized that he had no bad memories of the girl. Hinata had never said anything remotely insulting to him nor had she ever been disappointed in him, even when he screwed up royal. She was the key. Or at least part of it. Somehow he knew that, even though he wasn't sure how.

Energy rushed back into his weary form, though his pride was still gone, and he jerked away from the hands clasping onto him. Sneering in disgust at them, he returned his attention to the Hyuuga girl. What did she symbolize? What did all of this symbolize, for that matter?

Failure. He was afraid of being a failure and every memory he'd faced was associated with that. So how did Hinata figure into it?

Okay, she'd never thought he was a loser. That much was for sure at least. She'd never insulted him at all. In fact, despite her rotten appearance, she was the only one of these figures that had been painless to look at. Creepy as hell, yes, but still not bad compared to the others. And she'd been the only one.

No…She wasn't. Naruto's eyes shot open in realization. There was one person who hadn't been unpleasant in the slightest to look at. That was because he wasn't even here. Sasuke. Sasuke wasn't present at all. There were memories associated with the Uchiha, but the boy himself wasn't here to taunt him. Why?

Of course…He'd given up on him. When Naruto had done that, he'd surrendered all his bad memories and emotions regarding the boy. Sasuke simply couldn't hurt him anymore, at least not in his own mind. So how did that help him? Should he give up on them?

Naruto eyed the nasty forms that were still circling him, just waiting for a moment of weakness on his part. No, giving up is exactly what they _wanted_ him to do. So what? What was the answer? The key was something that lay between Hinata and Sasuke, but what was it?

It hit Naruto. Almost literally. The answer made him feel like he'd been socked in his gut. The key was a realization about himself that was probably obvious to everyone else but him. There was one factor that almost everyone admitted about him, however grudgingly, when they met him.

But damn if it didn't hurt.

Naruto closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Odd how he hadn't noticed that he was breathing underwater. Cold and clammy hands grabbed onto him almost immediately and began to drag him downwards. Strange. He felt oddly…peaceful now that he thought about it. All he had to do was accept this part of his personality. He opened his eyes and looked out at the shapes gathered around him. As expected, Hinata was the only one not grasping him. The twisted forms of the people he knew refused to let go now, even with his eyes open, their triumph imminent.

"Let go," Naruto ordered.

Instantly, all of them released him and moved back a good ten feet. He sighed and gathered his resolve.

'I have to accept this. It's the truth whether I believe it or not and I'll never move on if I don't acknowledge it.'

Naruto briefly met the eyes of everyone surrounding him. The memories came back with each gaze, but he had no ego to be wounded anymore. Rather than cringing away from his humiliations, he simply accepted them for what they were.

"I'll say this once to you all," The boy began, "I may or may not ever tell this to you in real life, so just listen up now to what I have to say. There're a lot of you here and I've failed to impress you all at some point or another. That doesn't matter. I hate some of you."

He gave a brief look towards Kabuto and Orochimaru.

"Some of you are my friends and comrades."

His eyes traced over all the people he's fought alongside and befriended over the years.

"Some of you I love as my dear family."

His eyes met Iruka, Jiraiya, and Tsunade's gazes.

"One of you I've loved for a long time."

He looked towards Sakura.

"And one of you has never given up on me, no matter how stupid or weak I've been."

He focused his attention on Hinata. Neither of them blinked.

"But there is one thing all of you have in common."

Naruto gave a tired, sad smile that was more genuine than any of his borderline sociopathic fox-grins he'd hidden behind over the years.

"I can survive without you."

All of the figures flinched and backed away, except for Hinata. Then again, the girl had always accepted him no matter what. He didn't doubt for an instant that he could tell her he was the Kyuubi-vessel. Hell, he could be the demon himself and she would still accept it. She might be nervous, do one of those little weirdo habits of hers, and avoid him for awhile, but she'd accept it and be the same as usual in a couple days.

Hinata would storm the gates of hell with him if he asked her to, even though she'd be pissing her pants the whole way. He didn't deserve such faith, but she gave it to him freely regardless.

Which was why he had to face her as he said this. The Hyuuga girl would be the hardest of them all to say this to. She could and would accept that he could live without her, but it was still painful to say it to someone who thought no ill of him.

Naruto met the eyes of the girl and didn't blink once as he said, "I can live without you all. You aren't necessary to me. It doesn't matter how much you care about me or hate me. Nothing will ever stop me except death and I'll debate even that. Your opinions can't hold me back. I _want_ you to think I'm strong and to be proud of me, but I can survive without your pride. Most of you I care about and I would give my life to protect you, but I can still keep going without you. Even my family, Iruka-sensei, Ero-sennin, and…Baa-chan. I love you, but I can live without your love in return. If you want, blame it on growing up alone with no one to depend on except for myself. It doesn't change anything. I love you, I care about you, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life, but…"

Naruto stared sadly at Hinata for a long moment.

"I don't need you."

Before the boy's quiet statement had even faded he was standing alone in the hallway of his mind, perfectly dry and bearing a new understanding of himself.

He was a survivor. He had _always_ been a survivor. He only needed himself to keep going. His dream was to become the strongest, the Hokage, to protect his precious people from anything and everything. The fancy name 'Fire Shadow' meant one thing: the best. He was going to be the best and it didn't matter how many people loved or hated him or whether he had the Kyuubi or not. He would be the best. In Konoha, that meant being Hokage. In Wind Country, it meant being Kazekage. There were as many names for it as there were people in the world, but no matter what its title, he would achieve it. He'd be the best.

And he'd live through everything life sent at him. He always had.

It's not that Naruto didn't want a family or friends or someone to fall in love with. It wasn't that at all. Those were all things he desperately wanted as much as the body wanted oxygen. However, the cold truth remained that though he wanted them more than anything, he still didn't need them. It would hurt…Sweet Kami, it would _hurt_ if he lost his precious people, but that didn't change the fact that he could survive without them. Other people may argue that anyone can survive solely on the three necessities: food, clothing, and shelter. Those people haven't spent the first 85 percent of their life alone and hated by virtually everyone around them. Humans are social animals and almost all of them need some sort of contact with people to live, if only to maintain the motivation to survive. Naruto didn't. His life had been a make or break situation since day one. He would either get stronger or he'd shatter.

He hadn't broken.

Underneath his many layers of foolishness and idiocy, there was a vast store of willpower and survival instinct that had been tempered by years of solitude. Add to that the fact that during the first twelve years of his life, Naruto's life was better in the _absence_ of people and the end result was an individual hard-wired for solo survival. Without other people he may be miserable, hungry, and worst of all lonely, but he would still live. He would still grow, in every way. His growth as a shinobi would be slowed severely, but it wouldn't be stopped. If one of the people he considered family died, he'd mourn for them and miss them everyday of his life, but he'd carry on. If everyone in the Leaf up and died instantly, with only him left living, then he'd still stay alive. He'd probably be insane from the trauma and grief for the rest of his life, but he would still live till he died, as odd as that may sound. It may appear contradictory, but it's the truth as far as he was concerned.

Whether he survived till he was as old as the Sandaime had been or if he died tomorrow, Naruto would never quit until he squeezed every last drop of existence from his life. Despite the despair he'd lived with his whole life, Naruto had never once considered suicide. He couldn't even understand the concept. Dying as an old man, getting killed in a fight, or taking a mortal blow for someone precious he could accept, but just lying down and quitting? It didn't compute with his mentality. Even if he lost everything and everyone he ever loved, he wouldn't…_couldn't_ quit.

It just wasn't who he was.

Naruto started walking as he mulled over what he'd learned from the Doom Pools (as he now thought of them.) The memories he'd encountered within them had taught him three important lessons about himself. The order he learned them in was mixed up compared to the overall lesson, but that was just how his mind worked. From the third pool, he learned that he could survive without anybody or anything (barring the three necessities of life, of course.) Miserable, wretched, and horribly alone he would be, but he could survive. That tied into the first pool he encountered. He had a family or at least a small group of people he loved like a family. As long as they were near, he'd never be alone. He could and would live without them, but that just meant that he needed to treasure them all the more. Supposedly people only truly value something when they've lost it. He supposed being the opposite was also true.

A person desperately appreciates something they've never had before, but have always wanted more than anything. Those he considered family were more important than anything else. Learning he'd survive without them only reinforced his instincts to protect them. And that led to the second pool. There were some things he had to learn to let go of for his personal welfare and the good of his family. Sasuke was merely the most prominent example of that. Everyone had their choices to make in life and Sasuke had chosen his path. It was a bad choice and _very_ foolish, but it was his to make. Nothing Naruto said or did would change that now. He didn't consider himself a failure nor did he feel like he was giving up on the boy when a 'true friend' wouldn't have. That true friendship crap was just something people said to make themselves or others feel better (or it was a sign of a damn fool martyr.) A true friendship was based on close trust between equals, siblings in everything but blood.

Sasuke certainly didn't fit the bill for trust. He had tried to kill him for Kami's sake. It wasn't a spur of the moment or in a fit of rage kind of deal either. Sasuke had stunned Naruto, grabbed and immobilized him, then stuck his hand through his chest. He had done it in all coldly and deliberately. There was no excuse for his actions. The boy understood _exactly_ what he was doing and to whom. Orochimaru's seal may take away free will, but Sasuke only had orders to reach the Sound Nation. He could have just walked away after knocking Naruto out, but he instead chose to try to kill his closest friend just because of some twisted gamble to gain power. He would never trust Sasuke again. Jiraiya had been right when he said a friend wouldn't try to kill a friend. If Naruto continued to work towards bringing the boy back to Konoha, he'd only be wasting his time and distracting himself from growing stronger. And _that_ could cost him one of his precious people.

That was unacceptable.

He wouldn't risk their lives for a fool's quest to bring the Uchiha back, especially when the boy didn't _want_ to come back. Sasuke would eventually see his errors and the consequences of his actions with or without Naruto's interference. What choices the Uchiha made at that point were his own to make. When he'd accepted that, Naruto had learned that there were simply times in life to cut one's losses. Sometimes being a bull-headed fool with strong ideals was a good thing, like in the cases of Neji and Gaara, and other times it was like repeatedly bashing one's head into a brick wall: stupid, painful, and progressively more self-damaging with every attempt. He would cut his loss with Sasuke and focus his energy on protecting his remaining precious people.

And really, when he thought about it, the Uchiha was no huge loss anyhow. He was either an angst filled 'avenger' ("Did you look that word up yourself, Sasuke-chan?" Naruto snickered) or he had the personality of a block of wood that'd been stuck in a freezer all day. Really, as far as best friends go angsty, revenge-obsessed bishonen totally sucked. Hell, Thick-brows was ten times the friend Sasuke had ever been and Naruto barely knew the weirdo. Hmm, maybe he'd try to get closer to the odd boy. He'd certainly be an excellent sparring partner.

Feeling more clear-headed than he had in years now that he'd settled his conscience, Naruto walked at a relaxed pace down the seemingly endless hallway. He wasn't really worried about encountering another Doom Pool, as each memory puddle had taught him an equal part of one larger, balanced lesson. It wouldn't make much sense to run into another one that might totally upset the whole thing. His instincts were confirmed as the hallway finally expanded into a large, familiar room that held something far more dangerous than any painful memory.

As Naruto stepped into the cavern-sized room, he spied a gargantuan shadow beyond the thick steel bars that divided the room. Walking closer, the shadow stirred and slowly rose to face him as he approached.

"**Hello, brat. Enjoy the trip down memory lane?"**

Naruto stopped about fifteen feet from the barrier and crossed his arms over his chest. He was totally unruffled by the growling voice, even though it bore more than a passing resemblance to gravel rolling around in a steel drum and had the volume of a master subwoofer at a heavy metal concert.

"Actually it sucked ass, but you probably knew that already, fox," he said.

"**Yes, I knew and before you ask, yes I did have a part in it…To a certain extent, anyways,"** The Kyuubi no Kitsune replied as it rose to its full height momentarily before sitting back on its haunches to look down at the boy.

Naruto narrowed his eyes and said, "Then you'd better have a damn good reason for all this."

"**Indeed I do,"** The massive demon said, with slight amusement evident in its voice. Its tone suddenly turned deadly serious as it continued, **"Sit down, boy. We need to talk."**

Naruto was still pretty inexperienced in life, but he had learned one valuable lesson in all his time with the self-proclaimed 'Super Pervert' Jiraiya.

Nothing good _ever_ followed the phrase 'we need to talk.'

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**General: **Alrighty, chapter three is out on time. Hey, seems like a lot of people are getting interested in 'Foxhound' now. Well, hopefully that'll continue, but hey, who knows? Anyways, a couple of things I want to mention. It's probably noticeable that I barely gave any of the other characters much screen time in this chapter. The reason why is because I was itching to finally get on with it and get to Naruto's part of the story. It's kind of bad when the protagonist is little more than furniture for about two chapters worth of material. Anyways, the other characters of the Rookie 9 and Gai's team will have much larger and more important roles to play in future chapters. People also may be confused by Ino's strange reactions, the timing of Naruto's mindscape versus the real world, etc. That'll be explained in later chapters, so don't worry about it for now. And the whole Pools of Doom and their significance will be explained in the next chapter.

On that note, though this story may initially seem like it, it will **NOT **(bold print; all caps) be one of those fics where everybody hates Naruto, he cries and runs away hating them all, everybody feels guilty when he's gone, he becomes a criminal of some sort, then he returns for his revenge, etc. Sorry, I don't like the victim/angst fics very much. The times I do mention people looking down on him are important though, as it'll have an impact in later chapters. Personally, I like to think that Naruto doesn't overindulge in the self pity stuff and keeps his eye on the prize (Hokage, Ramen, Sakura's rear, whatever.) And remember, the bad stuff he remembered in this chapter was just that: memories. He also has memories of Shikamaru as his friend and of Neji's respect. Eh, whatever, it'll explain itself in later chapters. Just wanted to mention this to clarify to any people frightened off by the smell of an angst-fest.

If anybody thinks I've gone overboard on Sasuke bashing in this chapter, just remember that it's Naruto's perception of the guy. Okay, and I'll be honest, yeah I don't like Sasuke. I'm not going to totally decimate him in this story, as I want him to be as in character as possible, but as fair warning he's far from my favorite character. I lost all respect when he and Kakashi were late at the chuunin exams and they showed up all dramatically. In fact, I hated virtually every page of chapters 109-113 (though I did get some handy info on the Chidori from 113.) Anyways, let's just say I was rooting for tanuki-boy to cut Sasuke down several dozen pegs (he has them to spare.) I _really_ dislike stuck-up people. Oh yeah, on Naruto giving up on Sasuke, I think it's bullshit that in the current chapters he's still hung up and guilty over a guy **_who put his hand through his chest._** And I really don't like how in so many fics people often write the characters as feeling guilty about 'failing' Sasuke somehow. The dude made his choice and gave the Leaf one big middle finger while he was at it. So that part of this chapter stemmed from that annoyance. Anyways, rant done and warning complete: I don't _hate_ Sasuke, but don't expect any loving towards him either.

To all the people who answered my two questions about Lee and the ANBU (or tried to in the ANBU's case), I just wanted to say thanks. I totally forgot about the Forest of Death scene and didn't reread it when I started this fic, cause I don't like any scenes with Orochimaru in them (except when Tsunade clocked his drag-queen, Voldemort-wannabe, pedophile ass straight into the ground. Or Manda or whatever the hell he hit. Heh, heh, god she rocks.) To any Lee fans! He will have a major part in this story! Moving on, the ANBU I asked about because I was going to have her as a minor but somewhat important role way, _way_ down the line (at my current rate, like chapter fifty or something.) No she wasn't going to be the missing part of the NaruXInoX? triangle, but she'd still play a pretty important part for another character. Anyways, if I get that far, I'll just make up a name for her and throw her in, then maybe kill her off if I don't like her. Whatever. But anyways, thanks to everyone who asked. I don't have any questions for now, fortunately.

As for the pairings request, I believe I overemphasized their importance to the story. There will be more couples in the story, but a _lot_ of the regular cast will remain single. To those who worried that I was going to go overboard and pair everyone up, don't worry about it. Those fics do tend to get repetitive and bland over time, so I wasn't planning on it anyways. I asked for pairing suggestions to get ideas about the pairings I do have in mind and to see if anybody else was thinking along the same lines I was. Some people, weirdly enough, did. There will probably be one, _maybe_ two, other pairings amongst the Rookie 9/Gai's team crowd (I need to figure out a smaller, smoother name for those twelve.) They'll come way down the line. Which kind of leads into my next statement, but before that…Thanks to everyone who sent in pairing suggestions. I much appreciate it, although I am closing the active polls. Suggest away if you still want, but I'm not actively trawling for them anymore.

Yeah, people have mentioned that this story is kind of slow, but I have to say that it's gonna be awhile before a lot of the big stuff happens. I like to take my time and build up to things, mainly cause I like long stories myself. I'm planning on this story being roughly epic length. Sorry, I just can't help writing a lot. Naruto's possible recovery, his and Ino's potential relationship, what the title 'Foxhound' means, and the gamble Naruto and the Kyuubi undertake will all be explained as the story goes (some sooner than expected.) I'm not going anywhere and I will try to finish this thing (though it may be goddamn juggernaut by the time I'm done, blast it) and I won't abandon it. Unless, of course, they come out with an anime/manga that _totally_ blows Naruto out of the water, but I highly doubt that'll happen before I finish this. The action will pick up in about, err, two chapters or so. I think.

To all readers/reviewers, I hope you've liked the story so far and I hope you'll continue enjoying 'Foxhound.' Ugh, that sounded like a damn corporate statement. Okay, how's this: Thanks for reading; I really appreciate it.

**New Jutsu:**

None, bizarrely enough, though one was used in the latter part of this story. It and several others will be appearing/explained in the next couple chapters.

**Reviews:**

Damn, I got a lot this time. Thanks guys, I'll respond to the ones that caught my eye.

(Reviews removed.)

To everyone else who reviewed, thanks for the taking the time to do some feedback. I'd write more, but I'm tired and I want to go to bed before I die of exhaustion (and this thing'll never get finished.) Let me know what you think on this chapter (though I'd prefer constructive criticism over flaming.)

**Next Chapter: **Alright, Chap 3 is up 3/18/05. I'm going to shoot for next Friday for Chap 4, but it may take as long as Sunday since I'm expecting it to be tricky to write. So look for it 3/25/05.


	4. Err, I think it's an ear

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: Ino listens in on a conversation between Jiraiya and Kakashi and discusses it with the copy-nin afterwards. Sakura joins I the conversation later about the Sound's latest actions. Naruto wakes up in his own mind and encounters three pools of memory that force him to face some truths about himself, before he makes it to the Kyuubi for some answers.

**Chap. 4 -** **"Err…I think it's an ear. Cat, maybe. Kitty-kitty, meow."**

"Alright, fox," Naruto said as he knelt down into a half-kneeling crouch, so tense he looked ready to spring in any direction. He was still too wired from the Pools to relax completely. "What's going on?"

"**What isn't going on, you mean,"** The Kyuubi grumbled. **"Where to start…I suppose you want to know what those memory reservoirs were, right?"**

Naruto gave an annoyed snort and said, "Yeah, that's a good place to start."

"**It's called 'Rutsubo' by the few humans who know of its existence. It's a powerful, if outdated jutsu,"** The demon calmly informed.

"…Crucible?" The boy asked, confusion on his face. The fox nodded its massive head. "That's it? Nothing else?"

The Kyuubi gave a sharp bark that Naruto instinctively recognized as laughter.

"**While today's ninja may enjoy making spectacles of themselves by yelling 'Ninpou!' or 'Supreme-Shining-Blue-Butterfly-Attack!' the older people of this land preferred _not_ to announce their attacks to everyone in earshot. They felt no need to show off to their enemies before they killed them. The Crucible is a painful test of the mind, so they gave it a simple and fitting name,"** The demon-fox said, with a teasing grin that exposed a mouthful of eight foot long fangs.

Naruto blinked. He himself enjoyed flashy attacks, if only for the attention he got from it. He should be feeling embarrassed at the Kyuubi's taunt, but he didn't feel the slightest bit of shame. The fox had simply stated a fact and he took it at face value, with no wounded ego.

"**Ah, you're feeling the side-effects of it. Or perhaps I should say, main effects depending on your goal,"** The demon said as it noticed the boy's confused look.

"What's wrong with me?" Naruto asked suspiciously.

"**Nothing. You simply have no pride or ego. Facing your inner truths has stripped that part away,"** The Kyuubi answered, looking distinctly amused.

"A part of me is missing!" The blonde yelped as he jumped to his feet. A huff of wind from the demon's nose sent him back on his butt. Naruto got back to his feet, but he felt no urge to start yelling and jumping around in an outraged fury like he normally would have. What the hell? Blinking, he looked up curiously at the fox.

"**You see? An hour ago you would have been running around like a damn headless chicken,"** The Kyuubi's eyes glazed for a second at the thought of chicken, before it shook it off and continued, **"I assure you, you're better off without your pride. What's that old human proverb…Ah yes, 'a true martial artist knows how to slay the ego.' Your pride was a glaring weak point that stuck out to everyone you've ever fought. Minus it, you can analyze your faults and strengths without gumming the whole process up by attempting to satisfy your ego and getting killed in the attempt. Knowing your limits is far better for your continued survival than making a damn fool of yourself by rushing into situations. And as your survival is my survival, I have to say I much prefer you like this."**

Naruto appeared to be puzzling over this new information. After a few moments, he looked up and nodded.

"Alright, makes sense I guess. Though ask next time before you try and screw with my head," He said, with a look of warning on his face.

The Kyuubi shrugged its massive shoulders and said, **"I had little choice in the matter, boy. I merely set up the Crucible. It was _your _mind that decided it didn't need an ego."**

"Alright, tell me what this Crucible is and why you used it on me," Naruto said as he dropped down into his half-kneel again. His eyes held less tension as he watched the demon.

"**The Rutsubo is an old skill that forces the subject to achieve a greater understanding about the self,"** The Kyuubi started, relaxing its forearms a bit as it went into lecture mode. **"But really, that's only the primary side-effect of the jutsu. Its main function is to systematically open the Eight Celestial Body Gates. One opens with each challenge you face. It's terribly inefficient by today's standards, but it is much more focused and far less damaging to the body, making it useful for rituals."**

"The Gates?" Naruto said, his eyes widening. "You mean like Thick-brows?"

"**The boy with the parasitic caterpillars feasting on his forehead? Yes, like him,"** The fox answered. Its voice held a genuinely disturbed tone when it mentioned Rock Lee's eyebrows.

"I can use the Gates now?" Naruto asked, excitement brightening his face. Lee's power when he used the Gates was incredible. If he could use the Gates too, he'd a _very_ formidable fighter. And with a healing factor that would erase any self-inflicted damage in a day or two, he wouldn't have to worry about conserving its use.

"**No,"** The Kyuubi answered, popping Naruto's idea like a balloon. **"Not yet anyways. The pathways have been opened, but you still have to learn how to control them. It would, however, probably only take you a couple weeks to master their use, since you've passed the Crucible."**

"Then why did you want to open my Gates? _How_ could you even use a jutsu on me?" The boy asked, worry and confusion on his face. He really hoped the seal wasn't breaking or he'd be in trouble. Hell, the _continent_ would be in trouble if the Kyuubi got loose.

The fox closed its eyes for a moment, before fixating them on Naruto.

"**Alright, I'll start from the beginning and explain everything. Don't interrupt. I'll answer any questions at the end, got it?"**

"Yeah," The genin reluctantly said. He slowly allowed himself to sit cross-legged on the floor, rightly guessing that this would take awhile.

"**When we fought the cultists, you were struck by a seal that altered the one that keeps me imprisoned,"** The Kyuubi began, as it saw the boy paying attention. **"The normal seal is designed to freely allow our chakra to mingle in your inner coils, which is harmless to you. The cultist's seal changed that setup so that rather than cleanly mixing inside of you, our two chakras reacted violently to each other. The end result was…explosive."**

Naruto grimaced as he remembered the brief, horrible moment when he felt the chakra rip out of his body, before mercifully falling unconscious.

"**The seal's presence also altered you inner coil pathways, so much so that I was unable to heal your body as usual. It would have been lethal to you, but an opportunity presented itself. For a brief period of time, the containment seal was weakened and deformed to the point where I could slip part of myself out and into you. It only lasted a moment or two in the real world, but in here where time is slower I was able to build a few safeguards before I was forced back into this cage. One of those was a thin link of untainted chakra leading from me to your bone marrow where you blood is produced. **

"**I was able to accelerate your blood production dozens of times faster than normal. Because of that, the fool pervert was able to get you to the big-breasted healer and you survived. The downside to the overproduction is that it stripped your body of all its chemical energy reserves. What was left of your muscles was eaten away to make more blood. The hermit also used tourniquets on your limbs and what little tissue in them that survived the seal's attack unharmed was then damaged severely by lack of circulation."**

"So I don't have _any_ muscles and I'm _paralyzed_ too!" Naruto exclaimed, panic flooding into him. "What the hell will we do if those cloak freaks attack again!"

"**I said don't interrupt, brat!"** The Kyuubi yelled, its voice reverberating the walls. Naruto quieted down as he watched the fox. **"Really boy, you don't think _I_ of all creatures would overlook something like that? I'm the greatest of the youkai and I know more about human anatomy than even your healer friend ever will. I knew exactly what it would do to you. That's why I placed other safeguards."**

"The Crucible," The boy said, his eyes widening in realization.

"**Exactly,"** The fox said, a hint of pleasure in its voice at the genin catching on so fast. **"I prepared the Crucible so that when you 'woke up', you'd open each gate progressively as you approached me. Three gates were sufficient for my purposes, which is why you only faced three challenges. The reason why I've done this is because unlike that other boy, you have a mirror set of Gates directly linked to your normal ones. Can you guess what they control?"**

"Your chakra," Naruto replied without hesitating. He blinked. He was catching on pretty fast for an idiot. Did his pride usually cloud his mind so heavily?

"**Correct, boy. You see what clearing your thoughts has done for you? You're still no genius by any means, but you're definitely not an idiot either as long as you don't let yourself get carried away,"** The Kyuubi said, amusement in its voice. Then it returned to lecture-fox mode and continued its explanation. **"As I was saying, you're correct. The secondary set of Gates is to control and regulate my chakra. They're basically Celestial Gates, but to avoid confusion I'll call them Demonic Gates instead. Fitting, considering what they restrain. One of their major differences from your Gates is that they are _much_ more robust and difficult to open. In fact, to force even the first Demonic Gate open you have to-"**

"Open three of mine," Naruto finished. Ah, it made sense now. Damn, that was a _powerful_ Gate if it needed three others to force it open. "But why open yours at all?"

The fox's eyes held a definite glint of pride. The changes in the boy were becoming more apparent, even after only a short period of time since his trials. Yes, the Crucible was definitely a good decision. It hadn't explained to Naruto all the properties of the secondary effects. The jutsu forces the mind to face the weak or undesired parts of the psyche and to change them for the better (hopefully.) Subconsciously, Naruto had already known the three lessons he'd been taught by the memory pools. But his conscious mind never accepted them, so his mind was constantly in conflict with itself. The Crucible took the portions of the mind that needed to be altered and forced them to the surface, where they had to be faced. Unfortunately, there was a high rate of insanity or even death for those of weak wills when they faced their inner fears and faults.

The fox had taken a risk with the Crucible, but its faith in the boy's determination, strength, and bull-headed stubbornness had paid off quite nicely. The brat had gone through the trials and come out better for it on the other side. His mind was more focused and his determination had grown even greater, if it that was even possible. Yes, the Kyuubi was very pleased with the results. The boy was far from perfect, but he was mentally strong enough now to face the greater trials and threats that lay ahead of them both. At the very least, the fox could talk to the brat without him jumping up and yelling at the top of his lungs in protest at every other sentence. The demon certainly wouldn't miss the boy's blustery pride, that was for sure.

"**I was getting to that, but there is something else I want to explain first," **The Kyuubi said out loud, though it wasn't really a reprimand. Naruto guessed the fox didn't mind interruptions as long as they were brief and intelligent. **"As you can probably guess, my entombment in your body your entire life has greatly altered it. The presence of secondary Celestial Gates, for instance, is an example of that. There are dozens of other minor differences between you and any normal human, but most of them you can barely even detect. One of them, however, is rather obvious."**

"My fast healing," The genin said. He didn't really like the thought of being so different from other people, but there as there was little he could do about it he simply listened to the fox.

"**Yes, though it's only partly yours,"** The Kyuubi said. **"You see, while your body has a healing factor written into its genetic code **(**"Its basic structure,"** The fox said to answer Naruto's confused look.) **it needs demon chakra to work. Not only that, but it works _best_ when there's a mixture of your chakra and mine. In other words, when my chakra flows through your inner coils. The seal that hit you screwed them all up and because of that, I couldn't do the necessary healing to repair your body. However, the Demonic Gates are not a direct part of your inner coils like your Celestial Gates are. The Gates themselves were mostly undamaged, unlike the rest of your inner coils, and I was able to use them to force open and focus the first Demonic Gate. With that Gate active, it's now possible for me to repair your body."**

Naruto stared at the demon for a long moment, before jumping up and ecstatically yelling, "YES! Back in business!"

"**Nope, not yet,"** The Kyuubi said as its large eyes traced the genin's movements as he danced around. The boy stopped in his tracks and said, "Huh?"

The fox gave an annoyed snort, which knocked Naruto on his butt from the gust of wind.

"**Right now I'm realigning and correcting your inner coils to their normal state,"** The Kyuubi said as Naruto dragged himself into a sitting position. **"When that's done, I'll have proper access to your coils again and I can use the Demonic Gate to rebuild your muscle structure. Normally, it'd take awhile as you'd need to eat a great deal to provide the raw material for me to replace all the destroyed fibers, but with the Gate focusing my chakra like a laser, the power is so intense that I can simply create the needed matter from my own energy. I can resurrect dead cells in your body and create new ones to replace the cells that are completely gone. It will only be a matter of time before all the lost tissue is back."**

"Re-za?" Naruto asked in confusion, his mouth stumbling over the foreign word.

"**Ancient human technology. Don't worry about it,"** The fox replied, not expecting the boy to know what the device was."**It was merely an example on how I've been focusing your chakra and mine with the Gates."**

"Wait, focusing? I thought it was just like turning a faucet on all the way," Naruto asked in confusion. That's what it had looked like when he watched Lee fight Gaara.

"**For your weird friend and his teacher, yes,"** The Kyuubi replied. **"But I know how to constrict the Gates partially after they've been opened so that the chakra is channeled and intensified rather than simply being an unchecked flow. Think of it like this, opening the Gates in a normal manner is like turning on a water hose full blast. It's strong yes, but if you put your thumb over the opening most of the way it becomes even more intense. Another analogy would be to use a magnifying lens to take the sun's naturally warm rays and focus them to the point where they could burn something. And if you perfectly aligned more of them above each other…Well, you get the picture. The point being to take something already powerful and concentrate to increase it many times its original strength."**

"Damn…That's pretty cool," Naruto said, a grin growing on his face. "So, could you teach me how to do it?"

"**Yes, but it would likely take months of training even for you. Despite your impressive blood, it's still a difficult technique to catch onto and would eat up a great amount of time. Time we likely don't have to spare,"** The fox replied.

"Wait, what blood? Why are we out of time?" Naruto asked. _Now_ what?

"**Pick one to ask first, brat,"** The demon said with a note of exasperation in its voice. Only Naruto could try the patience of a youkai.

"Err, the blood thing," He said after a moment.

"**Alright, you have an Advanced Bloodline that is very potent. With it you could learn anything I have to teach you, if had we the time,"** The Kyuubi casually responded.

"You mean…? I have a Bloodline Limit! Awesome! Is it better than the Sharingan? Does it look really cool?" Naruto asked eagerly. He had a Bloodline! And here he thought this day would totally suck.

"**Grr…Brat, don't ask so many questions at once,"** The fox grumbled in annoyance. Then it noticed the boy had barely heard a word it had said and was instead only listening for info on his Bloodline. Pfft, humans and their new toys. **"Fine, yes, no, yes, and no."**

The gears visibly turned in Naruto's head as he tried to line up his questions with the demon's answers.

"Uh…I _don't_ have a Bloodline?" He slowly asked.

The Kyuubi grumbled something rather foul, before answering, **"Yes, you have a Bloodline. No, it is _not_ a Limit. Yes, it's better than the Sharingan. No, it doesn't look cool in the slightest. Does that answer it all, brat!"**

"Err…How can I have a Bloodline without having a Limit?" Naruto asked, staring blankly at the fox. It made a rather grisly face that the boy somehow knew was a frown.

"**Well, I suppose the hermit never told you. Or perhaps he doesn't know,"** The Kyuubi muttered, mostly to itself. **"Hmm, doesn't matter either way. I'll just tell you now. Alright, listen up boy."**

Naruto leaned forward a little bit, _very_ curious about the fox's new topic.

"**To put it simply, you don't have a Bloodline Limit,"** The demon began. **"The ancestor of yours that created your Bloodline called it an Unlimiter."**

"_Un_limiter?" The genin questioned, emphasizing the 'un.'

"**Yes. It differs greatly from all the other Limits. Tell me, what's one thing every Limit has in common, no matter how bizarre, weird, or powerful they are?"** The Kyuubi prompted, playing the professor role surprisingly well.

Naruto screwed his face up in thought, his eyes totally scrunched up in fox-slits. He sensed the demon genuinely wanted him to think about it, so he racked his brain for an appropriate response. Thank Kami the ero-sennin had included mental games in his training or he'd be completely hopeless at this stuff.

Hesitantly, the genin answered, "Um…They're all…specialized?"

"**YES!"** The Kyuubi bellowed, causing Naruto to nearly jump out of his skin from the blasting volume. The fox seemed…delighted? **"Excellent. I would never have expected a child your age, let alone a rather foolish one, to be able to answer that. Yes boy, all the Limits are specialized and dedicated to a certain concept or area of expertise. That's their common factor, be it the Sharingan to the Byakugan to those bug people. That fact doesn't occur to most humans, even those decades your senior."**

"Okay…" Naruto said blankly. "So what's this Unlimitey thing do and how's it better than the Sharingan?"

"**_Unlimiter_, boy,"** The fox corrected. **"Hmm, how to explain this. Alright, think of it like this: if every Limit specializes in a certain ability, then the Unlimiter specializes in being _unspecialized_."**

"You lost me," Naruto deadpanned. Blasted big words.

"**I figured,"** The Kyuubi dryly replied. **"I'll explain. The Unlimiter was designed to provide the opposite of a specialization. It allows its bearer to be able to become anything or do anything, within human reason. For instance if you wanted to be become a blacksmith, then you would have just as much potential in that field as you would if you had chosen to remain a shinobi. You can master any area of expertise, as long as you have the patience to learn it. If you give up being a ninja twenty years from now and decide to become a healer, you'll be able to learn the field as quickly as if you were fresh from the academy. Your ancestor wanted all of his descendants to have the freedom to become whatever they wanted, with nothing to tie them down beyond their own goals and dreams. Humans who bear the Limits, on the other paw, must follow a single or select few paths if they want to reach their full potential. Your ancestor observed this and made his Bloodline to avoid that."**

"Wow, that's pretty neat. But…uh, how is that better than the Sharingan?" Naruto asked. "I mean, it's nice to know I can do anything, but I really do like being a shinobi. How does my Bloodline help if I've already picked a field?"

"**Ah, that's linked to _how_ the Unlimiter works and why it allows you to choose any expertise,"** The demon replied. **"The Bloodline is a total alteration on your genetic level **(**"I _told_ you, it's the basic foundation of your body,"** The fox growled at the boy's bemused look.)** Your body, brain, and chakra pathways have all been carefully altered to remove their maximum caps. Basically, there isn't a limit to how far you can go. You can get as strong as you want, learn as much as you want, or build as much chakra reserves as you want as long as you're willing to work to achieve it. You still have to train just as hard, but where others begin to slow down, you'll simply keep on going. This is why your Bloodline is superior to the Sharingan Bloodline Limit. No matter how powerful the Sharingan is or how ingenious its user, they will eventually hit a glass ceiling where they simply can't get any stronger. Even the strength of the hermit and the healer barely change year by year. Yours will not. You'll still grow as fast as you do now till the day you die, even if you live to be a decrepit old man."**

"It's really that powerful?" Naruto asked in shocked amazement. He's had such a potent ability his whole life?

The Kyuubi gave the boy a sharp and piercing stare before saying, **"Why do you think you were chosen to be my vessel? What other newborn infant could withstand the enormous strain on their bodies that comes with being my living prison? Only a child that can endlessly grow could possibly contain the strongest demon of this plane of reality. Your chakra coils can mold to any shape over time, so it would be child's play for them to adjust to imprisoning me. Even your DNA has altered itself to not only adapt to my presence, but to take advantage of it. Your healing ability is just one example of that. It needs my energy to work, but it was _your_ body that created it."**

The genin flinched and stared down at his hands. It made sense. The question that had plagued him since the day he became a genin was finally answered.

"That's why the Yondaime chose me," He whispered. He didn't mean for the fox to hear, but those huge ears weren't just for show.

"**Yes, that human may have been a disgusting, cowardly little yellow-haired rat, but he was a smart rat. He knew your body would not only adapt to the strain, but take advantage of it. He probably even felt that your mind would be up to the challenge and grow to accept the burden of my presence,"** The Kyuubi grumbled. Its hatred for the Yondaime changed its growling voice into one of spitting hisses.

"My mind too, huh? Must've had a lot of faith in me," Naruto said, as he wrapped his arms around his knees and rested his chin on them. He honestly didn't know what to feel about the Yondaime. His thoughts about the greatest of the Hokages were always a confusing mix of pride, resentment, respect, and sometimes burning anger. Maybe Naruto would feel differently if the man had survived and he'd been able to meet him face to face. The Yondaime had done a horrible thing to him and turned his life into a living hell from the day he was born. However, the man had also wanted him to be viewed as a hero for the normal life he was giving up.

Naruto didn't kid himself with self-pity on the matter. He _knew_ the Yondaime fully understood what fate he was inflicting on him as a newborn child. The Hokage knew and probably died feeling more guilt than should be humanely possible. He still did it though. When the choice came down to it, it was either the people of Konoha or a single human child. The Yondaime made his decision and as someone who wanted to become Hokage, Naruto respected the man for saving his people. In a way, it was even an honor that he'd been chosen over any other child born that October day, as it implied that the Kyuubi was a burden that the Yondaime only trusted Naruto to bear. The boy felt a bit proud that the greatest Hokage had trusted him so much, even on the day he was born.

But that still came as little comfort during all those dark, cold nights he'd spent alone during the first twelve years of his life. It was understandable why he had mixed feelings about the man.

The Kyuubi's voice interrupted the boy's thoughts, snapping him out of his melancholy mood as the demon said, **"Yes, even your mind has been altered by my presence. Or haven't you wondered how you're able to understand a demonic tongue older than your entire species?"**

Naruto felt a near electric shock as he realized that the Kyuubi wasn't speaking in a growling voice; its voice _was_ growls! The demon was making growls, snarls, grunts, and occasional lights barks to speak to him. He somehow understood the fox so well that he'd assumed it was speaking normal human language every time he'd talked to the beast. Naruto even understood the little inflections and gestures the Kyuubi used the same way he understood the changes in pitch and tone when he spoke to a human. When the fox gave a sharp, bellowing bark it meant that the demon was laughing and genuinely amused. When the beast narrowed its eyes at him and twitched its right ear, it meant it was getting impatient and annoyed. If its whiskers were wiggling rapidly, it meant the fox was excited about something. A whole alien language and Naruto understood it like he was a native speaker. It had been so natural, that he'd never even noticed. Kami, what else about him had been altered by the demon's imprisonment that he was totally unaware of?

"That's so cool, yet so freaky," Naruto replied in a stunned voice. Well, at least he wasn't feeling depressed anymore. Nervous and slightly paranoid, but not depressed.

The sharp, barking laugh followed the boy's statement.

"**I suppose it is,"** The Kyuubi said. Naruto understood its odd head movements to be the fox's amusement. **"Anyways, is there anything else you wanted to know about your Bloodline? I'm not a full expert on it, but I have learned a great deal about the Unlimiter over time. I thought it wise to do so, as the only humans with the potential to rival my power were the ones who bore it."**

Naruto frowned in thought, before he asked, "There's nothing else to it? No flashy ultimate level or anything?"

The demon shook its head as it replied, **"No, but remember that it doesn't mean a lack of power just because you can't show it off to others. It may seem weak in the short term, but in the long run there isn't a human alive that you won't exceed."**

"Hmm, well that's fine. It's cool enough as it is," Naruto said with a fox-grin. Then he scratched his chin in thought and asked, "But, can't the Sharingan do kind of the same thing? I mean, the Uchihas look like they can do anything they want."

"**Hmm, funny you should mention that Bloodline Limit,"** The Kyuubi said thoughtfully. **"It happens to be directly linked to your Bloodline."**

"WHAT!" Naruto yelled in panic. "You mean there are two traitors running around with the Unlimiter!"

"**No, no, brat. Calm down before you bust my eardrums,"** The fox grumbled in reply. **"You didn't let me finish. I said the Sharingan is _linked_ to your Bloodline, not that it _is_ the Unlimiter. Alright, time for a little history lesson, boy. The man who created the Unlimiter was the great-grandchild of a refugee who came from a war torn land far across the eastern ocean. The people of that land were known for their variety and adaptability, which was likely the inspiration for your Bloodline. Now it's important to note that your Bloodline has no unpleasant side-effects, unlike many Limits. Your ancestor dedicated his entire life to the creation of the Unlimiter and it's as much a work of art and the ultimate tool. He spent decades researching and testing the seals and formulas to ensure the perfection of the Unlimiter before he sealed it into his newborn granddaughter. He was old by then, but he held onto life for another fifteen years or so to make sure the child suffered no ill effects. The Bloodline was a complete success and he destroyed all records of his work only a few months before he died. **

"**With all his knowledge gone, there was no way to replicate your Bloodline. Your clan was founded on his grandchild's blood and it has survived many centuries till today. Though each member has been exceptional in their own right, the clan never grew very large and they stayed out of the public eye for the most part. The vast majority of other people had no idea the clan even had a Bloodline at all, let alone the potent Unlimiter. I suppose your family preferred it that way. However, some people did take notice of the Unlimiter's presence and were very…_displeased._**

"**Several decades before the Leaf was founded, roughly a hundred and sixty years ago, a Hyuuga noticed that members of a certain family seemed to have unlimited potential no matter what they did in life. You've encountered Hyuuga arrogance before, so I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you that this man was _very_ irate that a small family of nobodies was more powerful than the famous Hyuuga Clan. This man was so envious that he studied your family from afar and attempted to modify the Byakugan to match their abilities. The result was a total disaster: the Uchiha Clan."**

"Disaster? But the Sharingan is the strongest Limit I've ever seen!" Naruto said. At least it seemed that way. Everyone he'd ever encountered that used the Sharingan was almost ridiculously powerful in combat. It had about seven or eight different functions, as opposed to most other Limits that had two or three at the most, and each function was a powerful ability. Sometimes it felt like anyone with red eyes and comma dots inside the iris was unbeatable unless they fought somebody else with red eyes and _more_ comma dots in them. At least, it _seemed_ that powerful.

"**Ah, you mistake disaster for weakness,"** The Kyuubi replied, **"I never said the Sharingan wasn't powerful. It is a _very_ strong Blood Limit, but it is also severely flawed."**

"Flawed?" The boy asked. The perfect fighting tool that had everyone in Konoha green with envy was _flawed_?

"**Yes, boy,"** The demon said. **"The Sharingan is near perfect in almost every way imaginable, but there is one serious factor that was overlooked in its creation. The Hyuuga who made the Limit was attempting to replicate the Unlimiter. However, he never truly understood the true nature of your Bloodline. Obviously, your ancestors weren't going to tell _anyone_ the true properties of the Unlimiter, let alone an arrogant man trying to steal it, so he attempted to divine its function through spying. What he saw was an ability that allowed the user to learn anything they wished, while the truth is different. This man was one of those 'genius' types that gains so much favor in the shinobi world, so his arrogance was through the roof. He assumed he correctly figured out the nature of the Unlimiter and spent a great deal of time trying to recreate it. He failed. Or perhaps I should say, he lacked the patience to handle the setbacks he continued encountering. **

"**He finally got fed up in creating a new Bloodline and instead heavily modified his current Limit with the concepts he'd attained so far. The result was the Byakugan became the Sharingan, an optical ability that allows the user to analyze and record an opponent's actions. He didn't figure out how the learning process worked in the Unlimiter, so he did the next best thing and created a copy-cat Limit. He sealed it into one of his sons and the Uchiha Clan was born.**

"**Now to answer the question of how the Sharingan is flawed, remember what I told you about your ancestor, who was patient and made sure there were no bad side-effects. He spent fifty years of his life creating your Bloodline. This Hyuuga, on the other hand, spent about six or seven making the Sharingan. Obviously, there were going to be things that he missed. One of them was a basic part of the Unlimiter he never even considered. You see, you can learn any amount of material because your brain has the caps taken off. Any amount of data you're exposed to you can smash into your head without any ill-effects to yourself. All the unused areas of the brain in a normal human are put to use in you, whether you're a genius or not. And to avoid potential brain trauma, your ancestor made sure to have careful functions added to the Bloodline. The main goal of those additions is to filter through information taken in, memorize the important stuff, and then dump the rest. **

"**For instance, when you learned the Rasengan, all you learned was how to perform the jutsu and any important concepts related to it. You didn't memorize every single thing the hermit said or the exact size of every hole you made when practicing it on trees or every single sensation you felt when you powered the move up. Not only do you have almost endless memory in your head, you also have a way of cleaning excess junk out. The Sharingan has neither. It's an ability designed almost entirely to record data and dump it straight into the brain. A _normal_ human brain. Not one that's been equipped to handle such pressures. Even worse, many of the Uchiha habitually left the Sharingan open…_constantly_. Whatever the reason for this action that's what they did, whether it was for show or to prevent ambush or to copy a stray jutsu. Anyone with a high-level Sharingan strolled about with it active and recording everything they saw all the time, even if it was something as foolish as how many steps an old woman took to cross the street or the exact hand motions to unlock and open your front door. Can you imagine what all that does to a human mind ill equipped for handling such huge amounts of data?"**

"Wait, so you mean…"

"**Yes, information overload,"** The Kyuubi replied. **"Tell me boy, what happens to an over-inflated tire? Or an over-filled water balloon? Or to your stomach if you eat too much?"**

Naruto said, "Easy, it'll…Holy shit. To their _minds!_?"

"**The brain can't handle it and the mind eventually cracks under the stress,"** The fox said as it nodded to the boy's statement. **"Madness is a _very_ common trait among Uchiha, but _only_ Uchiha with the Sharingan. As you might guess, the stronger the Sharingan is, the worse the insanity gets. The entire clan had a reputation for being as unstable as they were powerful. They were a valuable trump card for the Leaf when it was first founded and a major reason why the village was able to survive in its weak years when it was young, but over time they became more trouble than they were worth. Considering they were the police force and half of them were nuts, it's a wonder they didn't destroy most of the Leaf while they were still around. I should mention that they were very good at hiding their insanity, at least from ANBU. Their madness took all forms but the most common symptom was _very_ obsessive behavior. Other shinobi probably dismissed it as a character flaw of the clan."**

"Damn, when you put it like that no wonder one of them snapped and took out the whole clan," Naruto said. Huh, he'd never feel envious of Sasuke again for having the Sharingan. What good was a weapon if you lost your mind using it? And the obsession thing made sense. Itachi was obsessed with power or something evil, Sasuke was obsessed with Itachi and that only grew worse after his Sharingan awoke, and Kakashi was obsessed with Icha Icha, his best friend, and hi-

"Oh shit! Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto yelped, realizing that his former teacher also had the Sharingan. "Fox, is Kakashi-sensei gonna go nuts and kill everybody too!"

"**Kakashi…?"** The Kyuubi said, trying to place the name with the human. Human names were hard for most demons to remember and they usually preferred a description when referring to the person in question, like 'healer' for Tsunade or 'hermit' for Jiraiya. It was easier for them to remember clan names, like Hyuuga or Uchiha, but individual names were still difficult to place. **"Describe him, boy."**

"Uh…okay. He's tall, has silver-gray hair, and reads perverted stuff in public," Naruto answered. He sweat-dropped when the demon gave him a look that said, 'describe harder.' He scrunched his face up for a moment, then said, "He has the Sharingan, but only in his left eye. He usually smells like pine trees and rain, though sometimes he smells like clean dogs too. He always wears a mask, which is really annoying, but kind of cool too. He's also really lazy."

"**Hmm, I know who mean. The hunter is quite a skilled warrior, though that primary jutsu of his is as ridiculous as it is powerful,"** The fox muttered thoughtfully. Then it said in what, for a demon, passed as a reassuring tone, **"Don't worry, boy. Your former commander is safe from the Sharingan madness, for the most part. He has only one Sharingan eye and it doesn't work as efficiently for him as it does for an Uchiha, which greatly limits the amount of raw data flowing into his mind. His copying abilities are weaker, but at the same time he doesn't suffer from brain overload as much. Most importantly, he shows restraint in its use and keeps the Sharingan covered most of the time. That gives his brain time to process and dump excess information naturally. He still has obsessions, but they are mild and virtually harmless, especially when compared to the Uchiha. If he hasn't lost his mind in the decade or so he's had the Sharingan, then it's unlikely he'll lose it anytime soon."**

"Thank Kami," Naruto muttered. He let out a sigh of relief, glad that his former sensei wasn't going to go nuts. He held some resentment towards the jounin for ignoring him at imes, but he certainly didn't wish anything bad on the man. He suddenly blinked. Wait a second… "Hey fox, how the hell do you know so much about Kakashi-sensei?"

The Kyuubi gave an amused chuckle (which sounded weird coming from a canine) and said, **"You're only now realizing that? Relax boy, I can't read your mind from this side of the seal. I _can_ observe the outside world through your senses though. Usually it's rather boring, but I prefer keeping tabs on the goings on in the Leaf through you. I also keep an eye on you whenever you're in combat, just to make sure you don't get us both killed."**

"Oh, I see," The genin said. Weird as it sounded, it was kind of reassuring that he had such a powerful being watching his back, even if it was rather evil. The Kyuubi was Bad with a capital 'B,' but it was also in the fox's best interests to keep Naruto alive through whatever means necessary. Hey, maybe he could get the demon to teach him some jutsu! Wait…How the _hell_ does a several hundred foot tall demon-fox know human jutsu? Or history about Konoha and its clans? The thing knew more about Naruto's blood than he did, for Kami's sake! "Fox! How the hell do you know so much? About us humans, I mean. It's not like you can…spy…on…us…What the hell?"

Naruto's voice trailed off as he stared beyond the bars in dumbfounded shock. One moment he was craning his neck to look up at a monstrous demon and the next…

"**Does this answer your question, boy?"** The man…The _human_ man said as he walked up to the bars of the cage. He was just a plain looking guy, not very tall or noticeable. He was dressed in civilian clothes and looked just like any old merchant or tourist that Naruto would meet in the market sector. Watching the man casually brush his shaggy, brown hair out of his eyes, Naruto understood exactly how the demon could pass amongst humans unnoticed. That was one _hell_ of a henge, if that was the jutsu the fox was using. If it weren't for the haunting double-voice of demonic growls and human speech coming out of the man, Naruto wouldn't be able to guess it was the Kyuubi even after being its container for fourteen years. The man looked amused at the boy's shocked expression and said, **"As you can see boy, shape-shifting is child's play for a demon of my age. It takes little effort for me to assume a human shape and disguise my chakra to walk amongst your kind. I've been doing it for tens of thousands of years, so I know all the tricks for fooling even skilled mortals like you shinobi."**

"Damn," Naruto said as he walked closer to the bars to get a better look at the fox's shape. "That's scary, but cool too. Is that the only shape you can take?"

Like a slow movie projector, the Kyuubi changed forms close to two dozen times, pausing only long enough to give Naruto a glimpse of each shape the demon assumed. Most of them the boy didn't recognize, but he saw a few familiar faces in there, including Sandaime, Kakashi, and Tsunade. The fox finally settled on an older version of Naruto himself, looking about twenty years in age and wearing a more subdued and mature version of the boy's normal orange outfit. The real Naruto felt a little giddy at the sight of the tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome man he'd grow up to be. Thank the Kami…He wasn't going to be a midget for the rest of his life.

"So why did you spy on us humans so much?" The genin asked curiously as he peered at the fox in man's clothing. His older doppelganger shrugged his shoulders.

"**I kept tabs on you humans mostly to make sure you weren't growing powerful enough to become a threat. Other times I was merely curious or bored. I can't stand to be amongst such weak creatures like your kind for long, but you humans have proved to be a decent distraction for the most part,"** The Kyuubi said while idly scratching at his long, blonde hair. Then the demon walked up to the bars, crossing his arms and casually leaning up against one of the steel poles as he watched his vessel. **"I must admit, some of the things you strange apes have come up with have surprised even me. I've seen some jutsu that are so weird it would make you stare like a fool for hours after witnessing them."**

"Really?" Naruto excitedly exclaimed. "Can you teach me some of them? Pleeeease? I promise I won't whine or complain about the training or anything! Can you please teach me some?"

Honestly, the thought of being taught by a demon didn't bother Naruto much. Hell, he'd been taught by Iruka, Kakashi, Ebisu, and Jiraiya. Did an ancient fox-demon really stick out much amongst that crowd? Err, okay so maybe it did, but the pros of being taught by it were incredible and far outweighed any cons he could think of. The Kyuubi's knowledge of jutsu made Orochimaru's obsession look like a child trying to complete his bottle-cap collection.

The Kyuubi stared at the boy for a moment, before turning away and looking down towards the floor in thought. The demon frowned and said, **"Unfortunately, no. Or I should say, I could but it would be little more than a waste of time. Like I said earlier before we got distracted with talk of Bloodlines, we have little of that resource available to us."**

"Huh?" Naruto said. Damn, he seemed to be confused a lot today. "What the hell are you talking about, fox?"

"**I'm talking about the forces breathing down our necks,"** The Kyuubi sharply replied. He quickly reached through the bars and poked the genin in the stomach, making the boy jump in surprise. **"Or have you already forgotten what happened to you there?"**

"You mean the cloak-freaks?" Naruto asked, rubbing the spot on his abdomen

"**Yes, the cultists. But they are not the only ones after you,"** The demon said, still casually leaning up against the bar in a cool manner that put Kakashi to shame (to be fair, the fox _did_ have a lot more practice than the jounin.) **"The snake, and by proxy the red-eyed runt, will attack the Leaf again and I'm certain he'll make a point to kill you, if only because you've escaped him twice before. _And_ even worse than those two factions, another group has entered the picture. This one is not just after you or trying to capture me, they wish to destroy us both as soon as possible."**

"Who are they?" Naruto asked, feeling a little nauseous at the amount of people out for his blood. Great, not two but _three_ high powered factions trying to kill him or worse? Some days, he hated being himself.

"**You wouldn't have any idea who they are. In fact, I'd be surprised if more than ten humans on the _planet_ were aware of them,"** The Kyuubi replied, its tone dark and serious. **"They're demons like me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some of my subordinates are among their ranks. The seal that mauled you was a Tenma Fuu: a demon seal. They exceed human seals in almost every way imaginable. They possess the ability to bend or break reality and their only limit is the skill of their crafter. Only a powerful demon can create them, which means we have a powerful enemy. No human can use the seals without a contract binding them to a demonic entity or unless they have a demonic ancestor. Each seal is custom made and tailored for a set purpose. The one that hit you was designed for the single task of killing us both. If you hadn't exhausted your chakra reserves earlier that day, we would have died in a most gruesome fashion. **

"**That the cultists have the backing of a demon faction means we are in a situation more serious than I can convey. They may have originally been willing to wait three years before going after you, but with demonic support they'll be far bolder. They'll likely attack soon after they learn you've recovered. They probably even have demon seals that can track your movements and will know as soon as you leave the relative safety of Konoha. Had they not attacked, I would agree to train you, as you need to be strong for both of our sakes. With the Unlimiter, I could get you powerful enough to challenge your pervert sensei in little more than a year, but we simply don't have that much time anymore."**

"Shit," Naruto muttered. Dammit, why couldn't people leave him the hell alone? "So what can we do about it, fox?"

"**I don't know,"** The Kyuubi said. He raised an eyebrow at Naruto's shocked expression.** "As flattering as it is for you to have so much faith in me, I still can't think of any options that'll work. We'd be attacked and killed before I could finish training you. If we ran, they'd simply find us in a few days. They've already proven that the Leaf can't protect you. Going after them is obviously out of the question, as you are too weak to challenge them and they'd know you were coming the minute you left Konoha. As I said, I have no idea what to do."**

"Well, what about you powering me up when I need it? You could keep us alive until I'm strong enough to face them on my own," Naruto suggested. Duh, why didn't he think of that before? It was so obvious.

"**Because, there's an unfortunate little problem with me supplying you with chakra,"** The demon said. The dark, enraged look on his face made the genin back away a few feet. **"That slimy, filthy, yellow-haired, ape-rat that imprisoned me here also left a nasty surprise inside the seal!"**

The Kyuubi viciously waved his hand at the paper seal that covered the center of the gate that contained him.

"**_That_ accursed thing has an extra function beyond keeping me blocked from you. Whenever I give you chakra, it draws a portion of my essence along with the energy and destroys it inside your inner coils!"** The demon snarled. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists for several moments before calming down enough to continue. **"I have no problem with lending my chakra to yours, especially if it keeps us alive, but the simple fact is that every time I do so my maximum chakra lessens. With enough repeated uses, I'll eventually run out of chakra entirely and be little more than a wraith. I'll be powerless to resist the seal's pull and will be drawn into your inner coils where I'll be destroyed. That's _not_ a fate I want. And even if I am destroyed, I doubt our enemies will be satisfied with just me dead and will simply see it as an opportunity to take you out without my interference. As you can see boy, we're being backed into a corner."**

Naruto's face had a pale and sickly look on it. This whole time he'd been…_leeching_ off the demon?

"How long have you known the seal did this?" He asked in a queasy voice.

The Kyuubi sighed as it replied, **"The day of the invasion, a couple years ago. You drew on my power three times that day and I noticed later that my chakra didn't recharge completely. I hadn't noticed any drain associated with the previous times you called forth my power as none of those times required a great deal of power on my part. The more power you draw from me at one time, the more the seal eats into me."**

"And how much of you has been…_eaten_?" The boy asked, looking a little green at his question

"**Hmm, if you were to divide my maximum power into a hundred equal portions, then a little more than four units have been consumed,"** The demon replied. He noted the boy's surprised look at such a relatively small amount and gave a vicious grin. **"I have more power than I know what to do with boy, but even that's not endless. Eventually, I'll run out and then we're both screwed. It seems the yellow-rat had one last revenge against me before he sealed me inside of you. I suppose he didn't want to risk my _ever _returning to the Leaf should you fail to contain me somehow."**

Naruto leaned forward, with the shadows darkening his face ominously for several moments before he jerked away from the gate and began storming up and down the line of bars. The Kyuubi watched the boy with curiosity and bemusement as the kid paced back and forth. The genin seemed to be muttering and cursing viciously to himself as he moved, though the demon couldn't make much sense of the boy's rambling. After several minutes passed, it became obvious the kid wouldn't be settling down anytime soon, so the fox finally spoke up.

"**Dammit brat, what's your problem? And stop moving around so much. You're making me dizzy,"** The Kyuubi grumbled.

"My problem? My _problem_!" Naruto said as he walked close to the demon. "Uzumaki Naruto is not a fucking parasite! _That's_ my problem!"

The boy emphasized this by punching a bar next to the Kyuubi with his fist hard enough to make a loud 'clang' that echoed through the room. The demon didn't even twitch an eye at the sound, but he did raise an eyebrow at Naruto as the boy sat down. Naruto leaned back against the same bar he punched and muttered, "Fuck."

"**Alright boy, what's the big deal? I thought you would have delighted in my destruction,"** The Kyuubi asked, relaxing its arms from the crossed position they'd been in.

"If it was because me or the Yondaime killed you in a fair fight, then yeah that'd be fine," Naruto quietly said, He seemed much more tired than he had when he first walked into the room. "If you were just stuck in me for the rest of my life, then that'd still be fair. Just the price you'd pay for trying to destroy Konoha. But not like this. It's not right to die like an over-milked cow just because you couldn't be killed in a straight fight. And I don't like being the one that's doing it. I may borrow power to save someone's life, like when I fought Gaara with the Boss Toad, but I don't _take_ someone's power. That's the kind of shit that snake-freak does.

"I'm not _given_ power either. I've always worked hard for everything I've ever gotten in my life. I earn every scrap of my skill and strength through my own sweat and blood. Sasuke might be fine with other people giving him jutsu like it's his birthday or stealing it with the Sharingan or having the snake-freak hand power over to him, but I'm not. That's not my nindo, dammit. I don't take things if it hurts someone else. Even if it's a demon."

The Kyuubi shrugged and said,** "Honorable, I'll give you that. Foolish maybe, but honorable. I had to fight my way to the top when I was young and I had no qualms about what I did to get power, as long as the price wasn't something I was unwilling to pay. Your nindo is much the same. I suppose we're similar like that."**

"Heh, I guess so," Naruto said. "Wouldn't surprise me if we're alike. Before I met you that time when Ero-sennin threw me off that cliff, I wondered if I was you reincarnated or something. Too bad I'm not, huh? If we were the same person, we wouldn't have to worry about the seal or anything."

The Kyuubi's eyes shot wide open and his body stiffened as he heard the boy's words. On the other side of the cage, Naruto did the same thing. The boy stood up and looked over at the demon.

"Is that…? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He asked, gripping one of the bars with his hand.

"**Yes, I believe so,"** The Kyuubi replied as he frowned in thought.

"I mean, is it possible? You said those demon seal thingies can do anything, right?" Naruto tensely asked.

"**It is possible and they can do it, but it would be obscenely risky for both of us,"** The demon replied, his powerful and ancient mind racing and considering all the factors.

"We can do it though, right? Become the same person? Your power and knowledge…"

"**And your body and Bloodline,"** The Kyuubi finished. **"It's possible. With the Unlimiter, it might actually work. Your body and mind could certainly handle the strain as long as we prepared carefully. It certainly couldn't all be done at one time. Even with your Bloodline, you're still human and there are limits to how much you can take at once."**

"Yeah, but it could work, right?" Naruto quickly asked. "It'd mean we wouldn't be us anymore, but it's our best chance to survive."

The demon didn't answer for several long minutes as it puzzled over all of their limited options and the possible paths they could take. He had to admit, it was the only option he could think of that gave them a life expectancy beyond six months. But did he really want to do this? It would mean becoming one of _them_. A human. A weak little rat-ape that runs about in all sorts of annoying ways. What other choice did he have? Facing oblivion when the seal finally destroyed him? Die alongside the boy and hope that his soul remained contained inside Naruto's as he moved on to the human afterlife? How did he know the seal wouldn't just destroy him upon the boy's death? He needed to think about this, long and hard before he made a hasty decision.

"**Boy, wait here. I must ponder this before I make a choice. I will also need to prepare if I do decide to go through with it. I'll be back in a several hours. I suggest you rest,"** The Kyuubi said as he turned and walked into the deep shadows in the back of his cage. Naruto watched as the demon walked away, shedding the human skin and resuming its natural form as it went. In less time than it took to count to five, he was totally alone in the large room.

"Okay, bye!" He yelled sarcastically after the demon. "Jeez, stupid fox."

Feeling exhausted from the long conversation and his earlier trials, Naruto decided to take the Kyuubi's advice. Walking over to the nearest wall to where he stood, he sat down while leaning up against it and rested his head on his knees. Rather than think too heavily the potential consequences of his proposal, he instead allowed himself to doze off.

After all, when did Uzumaki Naruto ever stop to think things through?

* * *

"**Boy. Hey boy, get up."**

"…Sakura-chan, I didn't know you wore ramen string underwear…"

"**Off your ass, brat!"**

"Ah!" Naruto yelled as he went from sound sleep to jumping into a standing position in less than a second. He looked upwards into the Kyuubi's massive canine face that loomed over him on the other side of the gate. "Gah! That's the last thing I ever wanna see when I first wake up."

The demon gave a snort that predictably threw the boy on his ass.

"**Cute. Come over here and pay attention. We have plans to discuss,"** The Kyuubi said. Naruto dragged himself to his feet, wandered over to the front of the cage, and plopped down on the floor. He scratched the side of his head tiredly and looked up at the fox.

"What's up?" He mumbled as he yawned.

"**Dumb ass, you don't need to yawn inside your own mind,"** The Kyuubi muttered. Louder, it continued, **"Alright, pay attention. I've come up with a plan to merge the two of us together, but to pull it off successfully we need to get out of Konoha for awhile."**

Naruto's mind cleared instantly. He frowned and said, "Leave the Leaf? Why? Can't we just do it here?"

"**Oh yes boy, sure we'll do it here. Then you can explain to the healer all about the little conversation you had with the giant fox-demon inside your stomach and how it convinced you that breaking the seal and merging with it was a good idea. Being a responsible leader, of _course_ she'll let you do it. She might even help you turn a demon loose,"** The Kyuubi drawled out sarcastically.

"Okay, I get it! We'll leave Konoha. Jeez, bite my head why don't ya? Not literally!" Naruto yelled when he saw the fox grin at his choice of words. The boy glared at the demon for a moment, before his expression turned puzzled. He asked, "Hey fox, why'd you agree all of a sudden? I thought you needed to 'ponder your decision.'"

"**I made my choice boy and I'll neither go back on it nor will I explain it to you. Besides, you'll find out anyways when we merge,"** The fox replied. **"As I was saying, I've devised a ritual composed of demon seals that will most likely fuse us together into one being…Or kill us. I'm not really sure. I've never heard of anyone doing something like this, even amongst other demons, so I don't know if it can be done."**

"Err, what're our odds?" Naruto asked, a little nervous at the prospect of getting himself killed in some kooky ritual the demon living in his stomach cooked up.

"**Let's just say, if it's possible it'll work. If it isn't possible, we're dead. That much I know for sure,"** The Kyuubi answered. **"I'm a grand master of demon seal creation, so in theory I can get them to do anything. If it's simply impossible for us to merge, then we won't get any second chances."**

"Wonderful," Naruto muttered. "Well, it beats sitting around waiting for someone else to kill us."

"**Exactly. This gamble may have crappy odds, but at least there _are_ odds,"** The demon said. **"Anyways, when we escape from Konoha we'll head due north about a day's travel, then turn northwest towards the foothills of Cavern Country. There are many large, open spaces within the valleys there that will suit our needs. I'll instruct you on how to create the seals when we're there. We'll need to hurry, as the cultists will be trailing us soon after we leave the Leaf Village."**

"Uh, what's Cavern Country and don't I need to sign a contract to use demon seals?" Naruto asked with a blank look on his face.

"**Cavern Country is a small country north-west of Fire Country and south-east of Earth Country. It holds the Hidden Waterfall Village and is a fairly mountainous region. They're pretty non-aggressive towards other countries, so they shouldn't bother us much as long as we don't go around attacking their ninja,"** The Kyuubi patiently explained. **"As for a demon contract, you don't need one. By housing me in your body you're automatically considered part demon and can use any demonic arts as you please. It's part of an ancient binding rule about hospitality and some such stuff. Think of it as a bonus on the rent for keeping me as a tenant."**

"Err, okay. So if we live, how long are we going to stay away?" Naruto asked. He really didn't want to be away from his home and friends longer than he had to.

"**A year, I'd say,"** The demon replied. **"The being we'll become will need time to adapt to its new mind and body. We might be unstable for quite awhile afterwards, so it'd be best to avoid humans for the first couple months. We'll return in exactly one year, if everything is well. You were planning on staying away that long with the hermit anyways had your training not been interrupted. Besides, it'll be good to get out of Fire Country for awhile. This land is too green for my tastes."**

Naruto snorted at the comment and said, "Yeah, I bet you're not happy unless it's a barren wasteland. How are we supposed to sneak out of Konoha anyways?"

"**With a couple new jutsu, of course,"** The Kyuubi said. The boy immediately perked up at that. **"Now come closer to the bars and I'll show you what you need to learn. There are three skills you need to be at least proficient in if we are to leave undetected. Two are jutsu from other countries and one is a demon seal that I've created. Now watch."**

Naruto stood a couple feet in front of the cage and peered through the bars. As he watched, a cluster of fog appeared in front of him just on the other side of the gate. It shifted around for a few seconds before it formed itself into a large, thin square that was about two and a half feet long on each side. The fog's white-gray color turned clearer and a moving picture appeared on it. It was like looking through a wavy window. A pair of hands appeared in the fog-window and began to move in a string of seven seals. They moved at about half the normal speed Naruto usually performed his seals, making it easy for him to see each one. At the end of the string, the hands would pause briefly and start over again, allowing him to see the beginning of the order with ease. He waited till the string paused again, then jumped in and started making hand seals in time with the mirror.

"**Good, practice the hand movements till they're totally memorized. I'll explain what this jutsu does while you do that,"** The Kyuubi said, before going into lecture-fox mode. **"Alright, this skill is the weakest of the three you have to learn. Heh heh, I stole the original skill from the Mist Village about two hundred years ago and did a little modification to it. I call it the Non-Detection Field, because that's all it does. It screws up chakra emissions within a certain area of effect, making it impossible for anyone outside the field to sense chakra being used inside it. Meaning you can perform a jutsu inside the field and no one will pick it up with ESP or anything. They can still hear or see the effects of the jutsu though. That Rasengan move of yours couldn't be sensed while inside the field, but people could still hear the wind rushing around it and see the light coming off of it. When you wake up for real, do this move first so you can cloak any other jutsu you use afterwards and avoid alerting any guards stationed nearby. If you perform it right, the move will cloak itself as you're using it, but screw it up and it'll make your chakra even more detectable. There's not much else to it beyond the cloaking function, though I believe it may screw up ocular Blood Limits as far as chakra detection goes."**

Naruto didn't look up from the seals he kept performing as he asked, "Which Limits? Like the Sharingan? It can screw that up?"

"**I think so, but only the chakra detecting part of it,"** The demon replied. **"As long as you are in the field chakra emissions are blocked, so the Sharingan wouldn't be able to copy your jutsu or anticipate your movement. It would still be able to copy your tai-jutsu and any hand seals you make though. Likewise, a Byakugan user wouldn't be able to see your inner coils or opening points, but they could still see your organs. The field only blocks chakra and not anything physical, but it would still greatly limit the effectiveness of those Bloodlines."**

"Hey, better than nothing if it can protect my jutsu and my coils," Naruto said tensely as he strained to keep up with the seals. They had been gradually picking up speed and were now moving twice as fast as he normally performed them. Despite his distraction, he still made a careful note of the properties of the field and how it affected both Limits. Anything that could give him an advantage over either Bloodline was welcome to him. Though it wasn't total, maybe they could make a specific jutsu sometime in the future that could completely block the effects of the Sharingan and the Byakugan. He was less worried about encountering Sasuke than he was his older brother, Itachi. The renegade Uchiha was supposedly stronger than any of the Sannin and Naruto would desperately need _any _advantage he could get if the dark man came after him again.

"**Stop boy. That's enough,"** The Kyuubi said, as it noticed that Naruto had gotten the seal order down. **"Now watch carefully."**

The image in the fog-window changed to a human figure standing in an empty dojo. As Naruto watched, the figure performed the seals and made a strange, grayish mist move out from his hands and bond with the walls.

"**Now you can't perform this perfectly in here, but if you will it powerfully enough you can mimic having chakra here inside your mind. Just try to use your willpower to force our environment to be as similar to real life as possible,"** The demon informed as it watched Naruto concentrate on replicating the jutsu. **"When you've practiced this long enough, we'll move on to the other two skills. Now get working."**

"Alright, alright…Slave driver," Naruto muttered as he carefully began to perform the jutsu. This was going to be awhile.

* * *

"The humans, they is not listening to us anymore."

"I know. The seal was unsuccessful and now they've grown suspicious. It's unfortunate, but we'll just have to work around it."

"How's we doing that?"

"Hmm, I haven't decided yet. It doesn't really matter right now. Even if Kyuubi-san survived, it still won't be going anywhere for some time. It may even be crippled, though I won't assume that till I've seen it with my own eyes."

"What is we doing then?"

"Watch. Listen. Observe. We'll keep tabs on both Kyuubi-san and the cultists. Corrupt one of the cultists if you can and see if you can gain us an ally in their ranks. The higher up the better, but any position will do seeing as there are only eight of them, now that Deidara has fallen. As for Kyuubi-san, though I want it dead very much, it would be best to be patient. After all, it's still trapped in a human child. And mortals are so delicate..."

"We waits, yes. When it's vulnerable, we attacks it and _kills_ it!"

"Exactly. Oh and don't try to possess the Unbeatable. Despite the madness induced by his eyes, his mind is still far too formidable to succumb to our coercion. In our current timetable, anyways. Try one of the others. Now go. I have other plans to see too."

"Yes! I go! Kyuubi dies! It dies and we grow! I go to peel a mortal's mind!"

"Yes, you do that…Little psychopath."

* * *

It was to the quiet sound of electronic beeping that a set of bleary, bloodshot blue eyes cracked open. They closed immediately as Naruto felt a wave of dizzying tiredness sweep through him. A cold surge in his back let him know that the fox was spiking his adrenaline production. The sensation helped him force his eyes open again. For several long moments, all he could do was lay there and stare at the dull, white ceiling. A not so gentle surge in his adrenaline made him aware that his tenant was growing impatient. Slowly and painfully, Naruto worked his body up until he was sitting upright. His entire body felt like shit. Sluggish, congealed shit. He could barely move at all, even with the fox boosting his body's endorphin levels. His limbs barely responded and his entire body hurt like hell, even though the fox had said his muscles were totally rebuilt by now. His flesh had completely healed and while that was a good thing, it also meant the several hundred stitches in his body itched so bad that he swore it felt like a swarm of fire ants and mosquitoes were attacking him all over. On top of that, his mouth was dry and he had to take a leak like nobody's business.

'What a wonderful day to be alive,' Naruto darkly thought. When he got his hands on that overgrown cloaked fucker that put him in here he was going to introduce the bastard to the 1000 Years of Pain Technique.

…Pineapple Version.

Uhg, he'd better get started if they wanted to get out the village before dawn. Which was only a couple hours away, he noted as he glanced at the clock. Naruto shook his head a bit to clear the cobwebs out and forced his hands to come together and make seals. Fortunately, his inner coils seemed fine as the fox had worked on those first. He wasn't going to push them if he could avoid it, but he could feel his chakra and use it as he needed to. Slowly and carefully, he finished the seals and gathered chakra into his hands, making sure it was cloaking itself as he formed the jutsu.

"Hikanryou (Non-Detection Field)," Naruto muttered under his breath. Gray fog appeared in his hands and slowly spread outwards and coated the walls. It paused for a moment, before it turned into a thin, opaque white mist that molded over every detail of the walls' surfaces and faded into invisibility. He waited several long moments to see if his chakra had been detected. When it appeared he hadn't alerted anyone, he made a far more familiar seal and said, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

A muffled pop followed and an instant later a second Naruto stood next to the hospital bed. The original took a moment to eye the clone to see just how bad he really looked. He was covered head to toe in bandages, so much so that no one had bothered to put one of those lame hospital gowns on him. Well, it's not like he'd get cold while he was bound up like a damn mummy. His face was almost totally covered as well and he couldn't see anything except for a pair of bloodshot blue eyes. Hmm, he'd take a closer look at himself when he cut some of the bandages off. Oh well, first things first. The clone reached down and helped Naruto move so he was sitting on the side of the bed. Then it wandered over to the counters at one side of the room and scrounged up a scalpel, before coming back. Carefully, it cut the bandages on the back of Naruto's hand and pulled enough of them off to expose the boy's fingers. It then made a small slice on the end of the genin's index finger.

"Alright, here we go," Naruto muttered as he pulled back the bandages covering the clone's forehead. Carefully, he drew out a pattern with his blood over the clone's skin. He knew this symbol by heart, as the Kyuubi had made him draw it over three hundred times when they were in his head to make sure he got it right. The fox had said that if he screwed up on the demon seal, _Anything_ with a capital 'A' could happen and it almost certainly wouldn't be good. It could triple his power or switch his soul into the clone's body or accidentally summon a demon lord from Hell or any number of unpleasant possibilities. Naruto pulled his hand away and narrowed his eyes at the seal he'd made. It _looked_ perfect, but he wouldn't know for sure until he activated it. The boy closed his eyes and sent a mental message to the Kyuubi.

'Hey fox, we're ready on this end.'

'**Good, boy. Here's the chakra and for Hell's sake, be careful with that body of yours!'**

'I know, I know! You've yelled at me about it for an hour already. I'll talk to you again when we're outside of Konoha.'

Naruto broke the mental connection and held his hand out. As expected, a faint glow of red engulfed it as demonic energy pooled into his palm. Reaching out he pressed his first two fingers into the center of the seal on the clone.

"Tenma Fuu: Ketsu Bunshin (Demon Seal: Blood Clone)," Naruto said as he allowed the demon chakra to flow into the marking. The clone jolted and tensed like it was being electrocuted. As Naruto watched, the blood seemed to change into glowing, liquid fire. The lines of the seal branched out and moved under the bandages of the bunshin. Though he couldn't see it, Naruto knew the seal was covering the entire clone's body and modifying it. After several moments, the fiery-red lines turned black like normal seal ink and retreated back into the original shape of the seal. The dark marking slowly faded away into normal skin, much like the seal on Naruto's stomach did.

"Whoa, that was a shocker," The clone muttered as it shook its head, before covering it back up with the bandages. It reached down and grabbed Naruto's arm and hauled him to his feet. The clone had to steady the real boy, as Naruto's body was still sore and sluggish. "Here, let me help you with those."

With the clone's help, Naruto removed the two IVs in his left arm and let them rest on the bed. The clone pealed back the bandages on its chest, while Naruto pulled the sticky heart monitor pads off his own torso. Quickly, they placed the leads onto the clone, making sure they rested on the same spots as they had on Naruto's body. Both boy and clone nervously looked over at the heart monitor, praying it wouldn't make one of those flat-line alarms like they always did in the movies. The machine did a couple weird reboot functions, but after a couple moments the clone's heartbeat was picked up perfectly by it. Both blondes sighed, relaxing their tension.

"That's a relief," Naruto muttered.

"No kidding," The clone replied calmly. Seeing that its creator could stand without its help, the blood bunshin walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. It handed the scalpel to the boy and said, "Don't forget some medical supplies and a pair of tweezers. You're going to need to pull those stitches out somehow."

Naruto nodded, taking the sharp tool and wobbling over towards the bathroom. He laid the scalpel on the sink before he went about relieving his aching bladder. While Naruto was occupied, the clone did its best to figure out how the hell the IV needles worked. Finally, it shrugged. It had real flesh, but pain didn't bother it much, so it just jammed the needles in as best as it could. It looked over its worked critically and nodded. Hopefully it would pass inspection.

Naruto, meanwhile, had flushed the toilet, washed his unbandaged hand, and was gulping down about a liter of water straight from the faucet. Wiping his mouth, he stood up straight in front of the sink, looking down at himself. Through his still partially foggy mind, he slowly began to realize an important set of facts. One, underneath these bandages he was naked. Two, since he obviously didn't undress himself, someone else must have done it. Three, the only people Jiraiya would have trusted to work on him were either Baa-chan or Shizune-chan. He crunched the facts and came to the logical conclusion.

Two people…Two _girls_ had seen him _naked_!

The clone looked up in curiosity as it heard a mortified scream echo from the bathroom. It shrugged after a moment.

'Weirdo…'

Luckily for the two of them, the ANBU guarding the door had finally succumbed to nature's call and rushed off not two minutes prior. Considering the man had been standing in near mortal terror for the past six or seven hours, he'd probably be awhile.

Naruto smacked his padded cheeks, trying to shake off the embarrassment. When he thought about it logically, he seriously doubted they'd paid much attention to his scrawny butt and _other _features considering they were busy trying to save his life at the time. Urg, but he just _knew_ Baa-chan would tease the hell out of him when he got back. _If_ he got back. The boy looked up into the mirror and stared idly for a few moments at his bandaged form. Wait… Where was…?

In a panic, Naruto reached up to feel his neckline. Dammit, it had to be there! If it had fallen off or if someone had stolen it…

His fingers felt a thin strip of leather just underneath the upper layer of gauze. Tracing it, he found the place where someone had tucked the stone underneath the bandages near his clavicle. Pulling it out, Naruto gave a deep sigh of relief as he stared at the glimmering, green stone hanging at the end of his necklace. It was perfectly fine. There wasn't even a speck of blood on it. In fact, looking closer Naruto noticed that it seemed to be even cleaner than usual. Hmm, it was probably Shizune-chan. The young medic seemed to notice things like that. She or Tsunade must have tucked it under his bandages to make sure nobody would take it. It _was_ a very valuable stone after all.

Naruto allowed his necklace to hang out as he took the scalpel and began the lengthy task of cutting off his bandages. The fox had advised him to leave some of them on, especially near his joints, but he still wanted at least half the cottony junk off of him. Not only was it harder to move with the gauze on, but he'd never be able to pull his clothes on with this crap all over him.

Fifteen minutes later and Naruto was looking at his mostly uncovered body in shock. An annoying side-effect of his healing factor was that his tan faded quickly when he wasn't in the sun daily, so his skin had grown very pale over the last couple weeks. Fresh, thick pink scars crisscrossed his chest, arms, and legs. Every scar had a line of black stitches tracing it. He knew from experience that the scars would fade completely in a few days, but it was still disturbing to see so much evidence of the damage inflicted on him. He moved to poke at a stitch and winced when his arm protested the movement. The Kyuubi had told him that though his muscles were completely restored they were still 'soft,' for lack of a better word, and would need some time to adapt to the strain he normally put on them. On the plus side, once he got all the stitches out and spent a week or so exercising in the sun, he'd be good as new.

He still swore to perform some horrible revenge on that Tsurugi guy the next time he ran into him.

Naruto gathered all the bandage scraps and shoved them into an air duct in the ceiling. He didn't want any questions raised and there most certainly would be some if he left five pounds of used gauze strips lying about. He grabbed the scalpel and wandered out into the hospital room. As he walked in, a flash of color in the corner of his eye made him glance up at the side table.

…And the medical tool fell from his hands and clattered on the floor as Naruto took in the most gorgeous sight he could ever imagine (barring Sakura wearing a ramen string bikini, of course.)

Orange. Glorious, wonderful, bright _orange_. The color. The shapes. The c_olors_, man, the _colors_!It was the prettiest…No, the most beautiful…No, the most _kick-ass_ bunch of flowers he had ever seen. He had absolutely no idea what types of flowers they were, just that they were _orange_. Wickedly cool, drool-worthy oooraaaange. Oh and there was a pretty yellow flower at the top too. He didn't really know what that one was either. But the whole thing looked really, _really_, cool.

"That's the most awesome thing I've ever seen," Naruto said, his jaw still hanging open a little in delighted shock.

"No shit," The clone said as it too stared in amazement at the bouquet.

"It's a…"

"…Masterpiece."

They stared at the collection of flowers for several moments longer before the clone finally looked up at Naruto.

"Hey, you need to get dressed and get going. It's almost four," It said.

Naruto shook himself out of it and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. Sure enough, it read 3:52. He did need to leave soon if he was going to make it out of Konoha without leaving a trail. He walked over and began searching through the lower cabinets, letting out an, 'Aha!' when he found his spare set of his normal jumpsuit outfit. He started pulling on his clothes and turned to talk to the clone as he dressed.

"You're right. I'll get going soon, but who do you think brought us flowers?" He asked as he hiked up his pants. The clone looked up from where it was reading through the 'Get Well' cards.

"It wasn't Sakura. Her daffodil is right next to the big bunch," It said, as it finished the card and looked at the signatures. "The old man and Ayame-chan say 'Hi,' by the way."

"Damn," Naruto cursed viciously. "I'm giving up Ichiraku ramen for _another_ year! Blasted fox had better appreciate this."

"_You_ don't really appreciate this," the clone responded casually as it picked up another card. "You haven't thought this through at all and you haven't questioned your decision either. You don't even know why you agreed. Not thinking things through again…You're probably going to get busted up somehow. Oh and Kiba and Shino say 'hey.'"

"Yeah, yeah. Look, it's this or we die," Naruto replied, as he pulled his shirt on. He winced as several stitches snapped from the movement. "I don't have to think about it. If I don't do this, I won't have the power to survive and I won't be able to protect our friends. And _Kiba_ brought a card?"

"Actually, Shino did, but I smell Kiba on it. He and Akamaru need to wash more often," The clone said, wrinkling its noise a little at the card as he set it back on the table. It picked up another and began to read through it as it said, "Logical choice, but you _do_ realize you won't be you anymore, right?"

Naruto paused shrugging on his jacket. His blue eyes got a dark, faraway look as he quietly said, "Yeah, I know. Needed sacrifices and all that. I'll do anything to protect the people I love. _Anything_. Even not being me anymore."

The clone glanced up as Naruto finished zipping up his jacket. It thoughtfully watched him for a couple moments before nodding and saying, "I see. Hinata-chan and Neji send their greetings."

"Hinata-chan? Maybe she was the one who brought the flowers?" The boy said as he leaned down and fumbled through the cabinets for several moments before letting out a curse. "Dammit, I can't find my sandals. Why'd they bring a fresh change of clothes and forget my shoes?"

"Probably because we only own one pair and they were likely ruined from all the blood," The clone replied calmly. "And I don't think Hinata-chan would buy something that bright. Do you?"

Naruto winced at the thought of the poor, shy girl carrying something so attention grabbing.

"I guess not. She'd probably have a heart attack from all the looks she'd get," He said. He let out a resigned sigh and stood up from the cabinets. "Looks like I'm going barefoot. Hope the fox is feeling generous when it comes to healing."

"You'll be fine. We used to run around barefoot in the woods all the time when we were kids, remember?" The clone said, waving off Naruto's complaint.

"I guess so," The boy said. He turned and started rummaging through the upper cabinets, gathering up odds and ends for his trip. "Think it was Tenten or that Temari chick?"

"Nah, I got Tenten, Lee, and Gai's card right here. I don't think any of them are the flower type," The clone said. It and Naruto suddenly looked at each other with identical queasy expressions. "At least, I _hope_ they're not from Lee…Or Gai."

"Which one is worse?" Naruto muttered, before he turned and gathered all the medical supplies up. He dumped them all into his side pouch and belted it on. It was his spare pouch. Whoever had gotten his clothes must've thought to bring along. His usual one must've been trashed or saturated with blood from the fight. "Temari? She might be grateful that Gaara's doing better."

"She doesn't seem like the flower type either," The clone said. It gave a weary sigh as it finished reading the card from Gai's team. "Lee says 'get well soon.'"

"Really?" Naruto said suspiciously as he grabbed the scalpel off the floor and tucked it into his pouch. The same person who forgot his shoes must've forgotten his kunai too. He'd need every sharp tool he could find. His thoughts drifted back to what the clone had said about Lee. "What does it _really_ say?"

"He and Gai filled the entire thing with crap about 'the blazing fires of youth.' Both pages," The clone deadpanned. It flipped the card over. "And the back."

Naruto took on a look of slight horror.

"_All_ of it?" He asked, incredulously.

The clone gave him a dry stare as it held up the card and said, "Tenten had to sign the front cover."

"Sweet Kami, we know some weird people," Naruto said with a bit of dazed expression.

"No kidding," The clone replied, setting the card on the side table as far from the bed as possible. Really, they appreciated the thought, but there were limits. "I guess that leaves that blonde friend of Sakura's."

"Ino, huh?" The other boy said thoughtfully. "I guess that makes sense. I think Sakura once said that she lives in a flower shop or something. I don't know though…She seems kind of bitchy."

"I hate to say this, but Sakura _isn't_?" The clone replied with a pointed expression.

"Err, you have a point," Naruto muttered. He may like the girl, but he was honest enough to realize that she had rather sudden…mood swings. And boy did her swings hurt. "So, Ino must've left those for me, huh? She has good taste, just like us."

The clone looked thoughtful as it suggested, "Perhaps it's not so much she likes the color, but that she knew you would appreciate it. After all, few other people understand that orange is one of Kami-sama's most wonderful creations."

"And ramen," Naruto interjected immediately.

"And Sakura's rear," The clone immediately pointed out. Then it scowled slightly. "He certainly messed up with her personality. Although, maybe she'll grow out of it."

"And maybe she'll give up on Sasuke too," Naruto said hopefully. He paused as he considered just how impossible that sounded. The faces of both bunshin and boy fell as they realized the odds of _that_ ever happening. "Well, we can't all be lucky enough to have a demon inside us that's smart enough to make us undergo an ancient jutsu that changes our priorities."

"Hmm, true I suppose. Anyways, you want to take a couple flowers with you?" The clone asked, gesturing towards the side table.

Naruto looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. He walked over and grabbed the daffodil and the sunflower, then stuffed them in his pouch. To the clone, he said, "I'll leave the rest of them with you. Gives this place some style."

The blood bunshin grinned and reached over to orange flowers that were left in the vase. As it straightened them around to cover the hole in the top, it said, "You want to leave a message for them?"

"Sure," Naruto said as he doubled checked his pouch to make sure he didn't need anything else. "Tell them, 'thanks for the flowers.' Man, I can't believe Ino can make such cool bouquets."

"You know, she is quite bit more…_healthy_ than Sakura is," The clone pointed out. "I'll bet you three ramen packs her rear is better than Sakura's."

"Maybe, but her personality is even worse. _And_ she's a Sasuke fan-girl too," Naruto replied. His eyes closed as he started gathering chakra for his last jutsu. "That's two big strikes against her."

"Hmm, who knows? Maybe she gave up on him," The clone pointed out as it watched the boy with curiosity. Naruto was starting to make a _long_ line of hand seals. "You certainly couldn't have been the only one smart enough to forget the asshole."

"Maybe, but I ain't betting ramen on it. Cash maybe, but not ramen," Naruto said. He made the eleventh and last seal of the jutsu and pressed two fingers into the palm of his left hand. "Shinkoumen (Midnight Veil.)"

Both of the blondes watched as a silver, metal-like liquid pooled up in the palm of Naruto's hand. The boy let the liquid grow enough to coat most of his fingers, then he lifted his hand and ran them down his entire body. A silver-metal line was streaked from his hairline to past his navel. As the clone watched, the metal spread outwards, seeping across Naruto as it slowly covered his entire body. Over the course of a minute, the topmost layer of his entire body was covered in the stuff as it finally closed up at the back of his neck. He looked like a shining, poorly detailed, silver statue.

"Damn, t-this shit is c-cold," Naruto said through chattering teeth. He tried to lift his arms to see his hands, but found that he couldn't with his sore arms, much to his annoyance. "And heavy too."

"The fox said it fades," The clone said as it watched the boy with interest.

Sure enough, the metal covering gradually contracted on Naruto's body and became skin tight. It darkened too, so it now looked like there was a perfect sculpture of the boy made out of mercury standing in the room. Naruto found that the material was almost weightless now and he curiously raised his hands to look at them. It also wasn't nearly as cold as it used to be, though a noticeable chill remained everywhere it touched his bare skin.

"Cool," He said, turning his hands this way and that, watching the gleam of the fluorescent lights play across the metal. Then he nearly jumped in shock as his hands faded from sight. In a few seconds, he had turned completely invisible. "_Very_ cool."

It turned out that Naruto had cloaked himself not an instant too soon, as the door suddenly swung open and an ANBU wearing a cat-mask dove inside. The blood clone switched modes from 'Interested Observer' to 'Half-Dead Demon-Boy' in about 0.23 seconds as it slumped back and pretended to be asleep. Naruto himself jumped three feet into the air and moved backwards towards the window. He winced, thinking the ANBU would hear his movements, before forcing himself to relax as he remembered the properties of his jutsu. The Midnight Veil was a near perfect camouflage technique that included sound muffling, scent blocking, and hiding body heat as extra abilities on top of the invisibility. He was right to relax as the ANBU barely glanced in his directions as he looked around the room.

The man looked about carefully as he walked around the hospital room, obviously trying to figure out where the voices he had heard came from. Naruto had to take several steps to the side to avoid the guy bumping into him, but the ANBU never noticed anything was out of place. Though, he did flinch when his masked face looked towards the flower vase. The man made a warding gesture at it and backed out of the room, never taking his eyes off the bouquet. The door closed quietly behind him.

The clone opened its eyes and gave a lop-sided grin. It seemed the jutsu was a success if even an ANBU couldn't detect it. The blood bunshin nearly jumped when it felt an invisible, chilly hand press on its shoulder.

"Later," Naruto's voice whispered from the air next to the clone's head.

"Good luck," The clone whispered back. The hand left its shoulder and a few moments later, the hospital window slid open. A few seconds passed and the Non-Detection Field suddenly broke off the walls with a faint plume of gray fog as Naruto released the Non-detection Field. The window slid closed again and the clone knew it was alone.

It sighed, feeling a little melancholy. It seemed even clones of Naruto disliked being alone. Still…The bunshin turned and looked at the bright orange flowers next to the bed. It smiled at the sight. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. It leaned back in the bed and settled in to wait. Forty-eight hours was a long time to wait when you don't need to sleep. What could it do to amuse itself?

A wicked grin spread across the clone's face as it thought about the ANBU stationed outside the door.

Oh this was going to be _fun_.

* * *

Leaping from rooftop to rooftop while still recovering from severe muscular destruction and atrophy was one of the more unpleasant things Naruto had been forced to do in his life. His body's reaction time was terrible and he felt like he had put a pair of Lee's weights on. He'd already had a couple close calls where he nearly undershot a jump and had to grab onto the side of a building to keep from falling. Thank the Kami Kakashi-sensei had taught him how to stick to things with chakra. The only reason he could keep running like this was because the fox kept his endorphin levels up. The natural pain killers were a godsend.

As he landed from a particularly long jump onto a dew slicked roof, he felt his foot go out from under him. He rolled, bouncing and bumping along the sheet metal and shot straight off the building into the alley beyond. The genin let out a pained grunt as he hit a closed dumpster with a booming 'clang' and rebounded off it to the ground. He lay there panting for a moment, before he staggered to his feet again. He didn't have time to waste. Concentrating chakra into his hands and feet, he quickly scaled a wall closest to him.

As he reached the roof and clambered onto it, Naruto glanced at the still black horizon to the east and took off running again. The Kyuubi had been keeping track of the days and had told him earlier that it was the first of May. That meant early spring. The sun would be rising between six and seven in the morning. He had to be several miles from Konoha by then. His camouflage jutsu had only one major weakness: sunlight. At night, he was undetectable and untraceable as long as he didn't speak out loud. The metal-skin covering him even dampened the effects of his passage, so he left no footprints and barely disturbed leaves and branches as he moved. When sunlight touched the skin though, his body would become partially visible as a clear, distorted figure. The scent, sound, body heat, and the physical dampening effects would all be weakened and bleed through the camouflage skin. The jutsu would still work, but any jounin level ninja could track him, let alone the hunter-nins they'd probably send after him. All this info had been pounded into his head by the fox while he sat inside his own mind listening.

The Midnight Veil technique was an advanced camouflage skill that the Kyuubi had picked up from the Hidden Steel Village several hundred years ago. The ninjas there had _very_ powerful technology and metal based skills like magnetism and other complicated stuff that Naruto didn't bother to remember. The Village had been destroyed by one of their own weapons during a civil war and there were no known survivors. The fox didn't know if any skills had survived to other Villages, but it did know that it knew more of the Steel's Jutsu than any other creature alive. The Night Veil had been merely one of them, though it was the only one useful to them for the time being. Naruto was _very_ curious to learn more of those extinct skills, but the Kyuubi had told him that he had neither the time nor the skill to learn the others yet. Oh well, if the merging worked, then he'd probably be strong enough to learn them. Till then, he'd just have to be patient.

Uhg, he _hated_ being patient.

Naruto perked up as he saw the village wall up ahead. A wave of relief passed through him. He was almost home free…err, home free leaving his home? Whatever. He shook the thoughts from his head as he gathered the chakra to his feet and leapt from the last rooftop onto the wall. He quickly ran straight up it and jumped to the top. He paused for a moment, to make sure he wasn't going to smack into any guards as he crossed over the barrier. With one last look at the still sleeping village, he took a running vault out into the trees beyond the wall. The leaves barely rustled in response to his passage.

'I'll be back. I promise.'

* * *

Two days after her disturbing dream, Ino found herself once again walking through the IC ward. She hadn't had the chance to run into Kakashi yet, as she'd been forced to immediately leave on another mission the morning after her nightmare and she'd only gotten back from it late last night. She wanted to check and see if Naruto was doing any better and to see if his lazy ex-teacher was about. She really wanted to get the man's opinion, but she had no idea where his regular haunts where. Perhaps Sakura would know if she was in today.

Sakura was, in fact, in that day. She was stooped over Naruto's bed, looking at the IVs in his left arm, when Ino walked in. She gave a small wave, then went back to her inspection. The other girl noticed the frown on the medic's face and walked over to see what she was doing.

"Something wrong, Forehead?" The genin asked casually. In response, Sakura lifted the arm she was examining and gestured with her free hand for her friend to come closer.

"Take a look. Some idiot nurse put the IVs in all wrong," The medic said, irritation evident in her voice. Ino couldn't really tell what was wrong about the way the needles were sticking into Naruto, but she wasn't about to let her friend know that. Sakura took the genin's nod at face value and set the boy's arm back down. "The needle in his inner elbow went right through the vein and into the tissue behind it. Worse, the one in his hand missed the vein entirely! This is terrible work. I had no idea the medical staff was so incompetent on this floor. It almost looks like he tried to put them in himself!"

Neither girl noticed Naruto's mouth quirk a little.

"Are the nurses _really_ that bad? I mean, they always seem a little shifty and nervous whenever they come near this room," Ino pointed out. "Hell, even that ANBU guy outside is acting jittery. Everybody on this floor acts strange around Naruto. Actually…Now that I think about it, haven't you noticed that almost everyone has _always _looked at him like he's some sort of…I don't know, demon-child? What if they did it to him on purpose or something?"

A strange noise that sounded like a choked off laugh floated up to them. Both girls looked at each other, then looked down at Naruto. The boy appeared the same as he always had for the past two weeks.

"Hmph, he must've farted. I always told him not to eat so much ramen. It's probably ruined his digestive tract," Sakura said as she looked back up at Ino. "And yeah, I have thought about that. I really don't know why people hate him so much. I mean, yeah he's annoying, but they look at him like he's the devil incarnate or something. And you won't believe this…Someone was nasty enough to actually steal some of his flowers!"

As both girls look over to the side table, neither saw the way Naruto's jaw clenched as though trying not to laugh.

"They _stole_ his flowers!" Ino shrieked indignantly. "What kind of freaks are running around this place? That's just…tacky!"

"Actually, I think they have a lot of taste," Sakura said as she moved around to the other side of the bed towards the vase. She made sure she kept some distance from the orange bouquet. "They took my daffodil and your sunflower, but left those horrid orange things behind."

"What? That sunflower was the best part," Ino grumbled as walked over to stand next to Sakura. "Yellow would go really well with him."

"Pfft, come on," Sakura snorted and waved her hand in dismissal of the statement. "Blue would look much better on him. It'd match his eyes."

"Well, yellow would match his hair!" Ino snarled, sensing a challenge from her rival.

Sakura narrowed her eyes and replied, "Yellow would look terrible on him. Blue is a much better color!"

"If he was awake, he'd say 'yellow!'" Ino growled.

"He'd say blue!" Sakura yelled as she got into her rival's face.

"Big-Forehead!"

"Dumb-Pig!"

"Yellow!"

"Blue!"

"Yellow!"

"Blue!"

"YELLOW!"

"BLUE!"

"Actually, orange is my favorite color."

Sakura let out a choked off scream and Ino's jaw dropped as they both turned to the bed. Naruto was calmly sitting up, with a relaxed expression on his bandaged face. His bright blue eyes were dancing in mischievous amusement as he watched the two girls. He looked very healthy for a guy suffering from grievous injury and atrophy.

"What's wrong! What's goi- Sweet Kami!" The cat-masked ANBU let out as he burst in the door. Though it couldn't be seen, it was pretty obvious his mouth was hanging open behind his mask.

"Oh good, you're here," Naruto calmly said, giving no other reaction to the man's dramatic entrance. "Could you do me a favor and go get the Hokage? I have something I need to tell her that she really needs to know."

The boy's request got no response form the three slack-jawed shinobi standing in the room. He sighed as he watched them.

Really, what was so weird about this situation?

* * *

"Get out of my way!"

"Hokage-sama! What's wro-Oof!"

Many of the medical staff of the Konoha Hospital noted the eerie similarity between today and the day almost two weeks ago when Naruto was first brought in. Not surprisingly, both incidents directly involved the boy and the Hokage. The cat-masked ANBU trailed behind the Godaime, watching in horror as she barreled through the halls, knocking everyone dumb enough to stay in her path out of the way.

Or through walls, doors, the occasional window, etc.

Tsunade reached Naruto's hospital room door and ripped it off by its hinges in her hurry to get inside. The ANBU behind her winced, then lifted the object off the floor and set it back into the doorway to afford the Hokage some privacy. He was just grateful that all he had to do was wait outside on guard duty. A door was poor defense against the Fifth, but it was better than standing next to her.

As soon as she stepped into the room, Tsunade stopped in her tracks as she stared at the boy on the bed. She didn't notice the door being replaced behind nor did she notice the two young kunoichi sitting on the couch. The boy sitting on the bed had stripped the bandages away from his face and she could see that he looked just like Naruto. Physically, he was identical to the genin in every way. Even his eyes sparkled like Naruto's.

He sounded like Naruto. He looked like Naruto. But this was _not_ the boy she thought of as her little brother.

Sakura and Ino didn't seem to notice anything was amiss as they tried to make conversation with the blonde. Either that or they just dismissed it as some side-effect of being in a coma for two weeks. But to a Sannin's well trained eyes, it was blatantly obvious. This Naruto sat up straight and spoke clearly, without any slang or improper grammar. His speech held a lilting eloquence to it, rather than the brash and hectic manner the real Naruto spoke with. More than that, this boy had a tranquil air about him, like he was completely at peace with himself and his surroundings. The real Naruto had so much pent up energy inside him, he always seemed to be vibrating whenever he wasn't running around. His smile was different too. It was a relaxed, gentle smile and his eyes were wide open. The real Naruto usually wore slit-eyed, fox-grins that made him look both mischievous and cheerful at the same time. Before Tsunade could analyze him further, the boy looked up and saw her.

"Hello, Baa-chan. It's nice to see you," He said, with a happy sparkle in his electric-blue eyes.

Tsunade relaxed a minute amount. Imposter this boy may be, but he wasn't hiding any sort of malice. If he was an enemy spy, there would have been a glint of _something_ before he covered it up with cheerfulness. This person that looked like Naruto was genuinely happy to see her, for no reason beyond enjoying her company.

That was the only reason why she didn't immediately tear his head off his shoulders.

"Who are you and where is Naruto?" Tsunade demanded as she walked a little closer to the bed. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed both Sakura and Ino jolt in surprise. Dammit, you'd think the people he graduated with would know the difference between an imposter and the real thing. She'd be sure to add a lesson regarding that to Sakura later.

"Ah, I didn't expect I could fool you of all people," Naruto said with a small smile. His composure remained completely unruffled, even though he'd been found out. "Naruto is probably somewhere far out in the wilds of Fire Country by now. He's probably been running nonstop since he left. As for who I am…well, that's a little tricky. I _am_ Naruto, but I'm also not him."

"A clone?" Ino asked with a puzzled look on her face. Every member of the Rookie 9 plus Gai's team knew of Naruto's talent in clone creation, but to be able to leave one behind while he left the village far exceeded even his skills.

"Impossible," Sakura stated firmly. "One, kage bunshin has a limited range. Two, it also has a time limit that depends on chakra control. And three, you have two IV needles sticking in your arm. No clone can be maintained for more than a couple seconds after taking damage."

"Ah, but who says I'm a shadow clone?" 'Naruto' asked mischievously.

"There aren't any other clone types that can take long term damage," Sakura retorted haughtily, crossing her arms in annoyance. Even a clone of Naruto could test her nerves.

"Who say I'm any clone you've ever heard of?" The 'boy' replied. For an instant, his eyes darkened and a red sigil appeared on his forehead. The next moment it was gone, leaving the two young kunoichi to wonder if they had seen it at all.

"That seal…" Tsunade whispered. It wasn't identical by any means, but the seal on the clone's forehead was definitely the same language as the one the Akatsuki had used on Naruto in the first place. "How could they have taken him with a guard on watch?"

The clone held up his hands and shook his head, denying her question.

"No, no. They don't have him. At least as far as I know," It said to correct the Hokage's assumption. "Naruto created me and left Konoha all on his own power. The…_group_ that attacked him has nothing to do with it. Not directly anyways. And to clear it up, I'm a modification of a kage bunshin to a much more advanced level. Naruto learned it from his…_ally_. I can take damage without being forced to dispel, I know each of his skills and can perform them as easily as he can, and I'm completely independent of him. No matter how far away he is, if he's asleep, or even if he's dead, I'll last until my chakra runs out. Pretty good diversion, if I say so myself."

While Sakura and Ino were staring in amazement at the advanced clone, Tsunade was having a different line of thought. The way the clone said 'ally' meant only one thing to her.

Kyuubi.

The Kyuubi was teaching Naruto new skills. It was also likely it was behind the boy's sudden flight. If the demon-fox was involved, this whole situation just got a hell of a lot more complicated. The fox had already taught Naruto at least one A Rank, maybe even S Rank, jutsu so far and there was no telling what other skills it would give him. A clone like this could be used for _anything_. If kage bunshin was forbidden, then she was tempted to outlaw this skill entirely. Assassinations would be far, _far_ too easy for this jutsu. It was like making a perfect replica of yourself that was totally expendable. Ridiculously useful as cannon fodder, distractions, support units, primary units in battle…the list just went on and on. Hopefully, because the Kyuubi was involved, Naruto was the only one who could use it. If Orochimaru ever got his hands on this jutsu…

"Why did he leave?" Ino asked, interrupting the Godaime's thoughts. "For that matter, _how_? He's been totally mangled for two weeks and all of a sudden he can go running off into the woods? He should be lying there half-dead for Kami's sake, not going camping!"

The clone stared at Ino for several seconds before it busted out laughing. Ino irritation grew the longer the bunshin laughed. How ridiculous. A fucking _clone_ mocking her.

"I told him you might be interesting," The clone said as the last of its chuckles died away. Its face turned serious so quickly that the young shinobi jumped and Tsunade tensed. "Extremely interesting. You have a great deal of potential in many different ways, Ino-san. I hope you'll grow into some of it by the time Naruto gets back."

"He's coming back? When?" Sakura tensely asked.

"Of course he's coming back, Sakura-san," The clone said as it rolled its eyes. Sakura blinked at the lack of a 'chan' suffix at the end of her name. Did the clone think differently of her than Naruto did? "He wouldn't abandon the Leaf. Not permanently, anyways. I have a message from him for you, Baa-chan. It may answer some of your questions."

Tsunade gave the clone a careful look, before she nodded and said, "Alright, let's hear it."

"Okay, here it is…Heya, Baa-chan!" The clone's entire demeanor changed in an instant. It truly seemed like Naruto was sitting there now, complete with fox-grin and everything. It was both startling and disturbing, like they were seeing a ghost of the boy. "I know you're probably pissed at me. Sorry for all this, but I don't really have much of a choice. I ain't gonna lie and say you don't have a reason to be scared, 'cause there's a big chance I won't be coming back. Not alive anyways…"

Tsunade's stomach twisted.

"I have a damn good reason for leaving though. I found out from the you-know-what that's stuck you-know-where that borrowing its chakra has some bad side effects that neither of us wants. It also warned me that there're worse things out for my blood than the cloak-freaks and the snake-weirdo. We have a plan to survive, but it might not work and I need to be far from Konoha and people for it to have a chance. I hope I'll be able to come back sometime soon, but I can't promise anything. The plan is actually so stupid it's almost suicidal, but it's still the best shot we have. If I don't return, at the very least we've kept the you-know-what away from the cloak-freaks, right? When I get back, I'll tell you everything, I promise. Oh yeah, I can't wait to tell you all about my Bloodline! The you-know-what told me all about it! It's really awesome and I hope to test it out while I'm gone! I'll tell you how it goes when I get back. Shit, I'm running out of time, so I have to cut this off. I'll be back sometime soon. Later, Baa-chan!"

The clone's face relaxed into its usual placid expression and it watched the gathered kunoichi for their reactions. Sakura and Ino stood with dumbfounded and confused faces as it had expected. Tsunade, however, looked both serious and _very_ worried, though she tried to hide it. The clone felt a wave of regret at adding to the woman's already high stress levels, even though there was nothing it could do about it now.

"I'm sorry, Baa-chan. He really did have no other choice," The bunshin said, sounding both apologetic and reassuring. "The _group_ has gained disturbing new allies and they'd make another move on him long before he was ready to face them. This is his only chance to survive. Besides, he's in good hands. His ally is _very_ knowledgeable and he's watching Naruto's back. It's in both their interests that he stays alive, so you don't have to worry much about that."

"I see," Tsunade replied, taking all the information in to process later. "And when does he plan to return if their plan works?"

"He left two days ago on the first of May," The clone said. "He plans to return to Konoha on the same date next year. Assuming he lives, of course."

Ino spoke up then and said, "Is there anything else you can tell us?"

"Yes, actually," The bunshin began. It suddenly made a deep, booming voice that sounded suspiciously like Gai's as it said, "You are magnificent! Truly a noble creature like you is a gift from the very Gods! Only a splendid, celestial being could have crafted the wondrous masterpiece you chose to grace our humble, lowly selves with! We bow to your awesome glory! You have shown us the Light and it is Orange!"

The three kunoichi stared at the clone, utterly shocked and with massive sweat-drops on the backs of their heads. The clone's Gai impersonation was…_disturbing_ in its accuracy. Thank the Kami Naruto had been Kakashi's student.

"He…actually said that?" Ino hesitantly asked. Kami, oh-please-oh-please-oh-please-oh-please don't let the boy who'd caught her interest be another clone of that thick eye-browed lunatic. That would be worse than anything thing she ever went through with Sakura or Sasuke. _Much_ worse.

"No, I made it up. It's been boring the last few days, you know."

Three loud thumps sounded as each kunoichi face-vaulted.

"What did he say, then?" Ino asked as she stood back up and dusted herself off.

"He said 'thanks for the flowers,'" The clone replied with beaming smile. The blonde girl relaxed. It seemed Naruto liked them as much a she thought he would. The bunshin continued, "In fact, he took a couple of them with him, though he couldn't take the orange ones. I think he was kind of disappointed."

"He stole his own flowers?" Sakura dryly asked as she raised an eyebrow.

The bunshin shrugged and said, "I suggested he take something along from the 'Get Well' pile. He preferred the flowers to Gai and Lee's card."

Ino shuddered as she looked over at the thing and said, "Well, that's unders-"

A loud gasp from the clone cut her off. The kunoichi all stared in shock as the seal on the bunshin's forehead reappeared, jet-black this time. The fake boy shuddered as the seal began to fragment and fade away bit by bit.

"Oh hell, the last of my chakra just ran out," It said through clenched teeth. "Baa-chan, is there anything else you want to know?"

"Nothing I can think of," Tsunade replied as she stared at the bunshin. She had a strange, uncomfortable feeling at the clone's impending dispel. She didn't know why it felt so weird, but it might've been because the bunshin seemed so…_human_ compared to a normal clone. Hesitantly, she said, "…Thank you...for telling me all this."

The clone managed one last smile at her and said, "You're welcome, Baa-chan."

The last of the seal broke up and disappeared. As the three shinobi watched, the clone's body turned into a glowing red, liquid-like energy. It didn't burst or puff like a normal bunshin. Instead, it just slowly faded from sight until it was gone completely. The sheet fluttered to the bed, while the IVs and wires clattered onto the floor with nothing to support them. Tsunade stared at the bed for several long moments, before she turned to the girls.

"You two, not a word of this to anyone. Consider that a law," The Godaime ordered. When she saw the two kunoichi still staring at the bed in shock, she sighed and said, "Sakura-chan, take Ino to your office and stay there until I send Shizune to get you. Get something to drink from the vending machines if you need to, but keep the door closed and don't talk about this to _anyone_. Am I clear?"

Sakura finally snapped out of her stupor at her sensei's words and nodded her head.

"Yes, Hokage-sama. We'll stay there," The medic replied formally. She hesitated and asked, "Um, Tsunade-sama, will Naruto be…?"

"I'm going to get Kakashi and a couple other trackers to follow him immediately," Tsunade replied tensely. "I have no idea what his 'plan' is, but considering he left Konoha without telling anyone it's probably borderline insane and so suicidal that only an idiot would try it. So of course, he won't think twice about doing it. I want him stopped and dragged back here as soon as possible. Don't worry. Kakashi's an excellent tracker and I'll get somebody else with a good Bloodline Lim-"

Tsunade stopped of in her speech as she remembered the clone's message. A Bloodline. According to the Kyuubi, Naruto had a Bloodline. But he hadn't said _Limit_. Could that mean…? No way…he's part of _that_ family? But surely Jiraiya or Sarutobi would have noticed, considering all their close contact with the boy and access to all the classified records. Naruto would have been given far more advanced and rigorous training if he did have such a powerful ability. Did the Third and her old teammate simply not know? Impossible. If Naruto was a part of that family, then those two of all people would have known and done something about it. Unless they didn't want to draw attention to it. _That_ was an unsettling thought. Granted that family had _many_ powerful enemies, but to squander such a potent Bloodline was near heresy to any Hidden Village, let alone the weakened Leaf that had to take every advantage it got to survive.

Then again, as much as Tsunade loved her old sensei, she still disagreed with many of the decisions Sarutobi had made in his lifetime. Allowing the chuunin exam to continue two years ago because Orochimaru threatened invasion and conceding to the Cloud's demands during that incident with the Hyuugas were just a couple examples. She wouldn't be surprised if he had allowed the boy to be trained like a normal ninja. Naruto certainly hadn't received any training to control the Kyuubi until Jiraiya had stumbled across him by complete accident. Although… Maybe the fox was at the heart of the matter and the reason behind Sarutobi placing Naruto amongst the other ninja children. The boy _is_ the Kyuubi-vessel and the people of Konoha would certainly have looked unfavorably at him being trained at heightened levels. But Sandaime still should have tapped that boy's ability. Or perhaps that was what he'd been hoping for when he assigned Kakashi to Team 7. Well, then he should have known not to add an Uchiha to the group, as Kakashi would have certainly favored him over the others. Which he had and at Naruto's expense, leaving both the Bloodline and the Kyuubi untapped. But maybe Sarutobi had hoped the rivalry would strengthen both boys and given the Leaf two powerful Bloodlines.

Tsunade groaned and pressed her fingers to her forehead. Ugh, this was just like her old sensei. He would make plans that looked excellent on paper, but had a hell of a time working out in real life. Of course Team 7 would fail. Naruto had a foolish ego, Sasuke was obsessed with his past, Sakura was a love struck fool at the time, and Kakashi had favored the only other person with a Sharingan he'd seen in years. Oh well, live and learn. She'd just have to learn from Sarutobi's mistakes. When Naruto got back, she'd make sure he'd get advanced training from Jiraiya and several other high level jounin. She might even teach him a few things herself. _If_ Naruto had the Unlimiter, then not only would he be able to handle the pressure, but he'd probably be a match for the Yondaime in a few years and the Leaf desperately needed someone with that kind of power.

Yondaime.

Tsunade had to resist the urge to hit her head repeatedly into the nearest wall (which would have done little except add to the maintenance costs of the hospital.) Of_ course_. There was no longer any doubt in her mind that Naruto had the Unlimiter. The Yondaime had been a smart man and even when he was desperate to find a way to seal the Kyuubi, he wouldn't have made any mistakes in its imprisonment. He would not have trusted the task to any child _except_ one that bore the Bloodline Unlimiter. Any other child would have died immediately or have slowly gone insane from demonic corruption over the years. A child with the Unlimiter, on the other hand, wouldn't just keep the Kyuubi contained, it would flourish with the demon's presence! Yes, when he got back Naruto would get more training than even he wanted.

After she punched him through a wall for worrying the crap out of her, of course.

"-kage-sama? Hokage-sama?" Sakura's voice shook Tsunade from her thoughts and made her realize that she'd been standing still for almost five minutes.

"Yes, sorry. You have your orders. I'll try to give you an update later tonight," The Godaime said as she turned and put her hand on the door knob. There was a groan and the door fell forward into the hall. The ANBU guard jumped aside just in time to avoid being flattened as it crashed onto the floor. Tsunade stepped over the door and calmly ignored the stares she received from the medical staff.

"Alright, get going," She said to Sakura and Ino as they filed out and kept a careful distance between them and the potentially crazy woman. As they left, the Hokage suddenly noticed the cat-masked ANBU as he stood up and brushed his clothes off

"And _you_," Tsunade growled as she stalked towards her prey, "What part of 'or else' didn't you understand? Damn, and I just had my sandals cleaned this morning."

The ANBU whimpered as his doom drew near.

* * *

"So…What do you think is going to happen? Is he going to be a missing-nin?" Sakura asked as she leaned back in her chair. She and Ino had been waiting for almost an hour in her office for Shizune to come by. The majority of that time was spent in silence, each girl processing what they'd learned. The silence had only been broken once by Ino when she'd gone to the restroom. Though she loathed to admit it, Sakura wanted both reassurance and input from her friend so she'd finally spoken up. "I mean, he said he'd be back, but he's so unpredictable…Who knows what he's going to do."

"What do you mean? Defect to another nation like Sasuke did?" Ino asked as she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. She shook her head. "No, I doubt that. I don't know him well, but Naruto seems loyal to the point of idiocy. He's stubborn too. He'd never abandon Konoha unless we were actively kicking him out. He's no traitor."

"But Tsunade said a weird seal hurt Naruto. If Orochimaru was the one who attacked him, then it might be the same thing as Sasuke-kun," Sakura pointed out. "Even an Uchiha couldn't fight off his seal's effects, so what chance would Naruto have against them?"

Ino narrowed her eyes and snorted. Her voice took its typical sharp tone as she said, "One, Sasuke left of his own free will, curse seal or not. I did some research on them after that Forest of Death mess and I found out that while curse seals can influence someone's actions, that person has to willingly give in to them for them to work. Sasuke may have chosen to use his, but Naruto's way too stubborn to fall for some psycho's trap. Two, a _group_ attacked Naruto and nobody has said anything about Sound-nins at all. And three, I saw what Sasuke looked like with the curse seal on him. Naruto's body was damaged in a totally different way. If a seal was used on him, then it wasn't anything like Orochimaru's work. This has nothing to do with the Sound, as far as I can tell."

"I guess you're right," Sakura said, looking somewhat relieved. Then she looked up and gave Ino a sly grin. "No '-kun,' huh? Don't tell me you've given up on Sasuke-kun, Ino-Pig."

The blonde girl's stunned look caught the medic off guard as Ino said, "Uh, yeah. Of course I have."

Sakura blinked and asked, "You're joking, right? Why would you give up on him? I thought you liked him almost as much as I do."

"Yeeeeah," Ino said slowly, as if talking to a child. Maybe she was. "That was before he turned traitor and got five of our friends nearly killed. Six if you include Lee running off after them."

"But that wasn't his fault!" Sakura protested. "It was that damn curse seal Orochimaru put on him!"

"Really?" Ino scathingly replied. Her friend was _still_ carrying a torch for the bastard? "And how did he change after the curse seal was put on him?"

"He…He kept starting fights for no reason and was really cold to people," Sakura said. She ignored the fact that she had to think hard to come up with a difference in Sasuke's attitude. "He even started challenging Naruto and he always ignored him before."

"And _how_ is that different than what he used to be like?" Her friend asked in a coldly logical voice. "As far as I remember he was always fighting with people or treating them like shit. The only reason why he started picking fights with Naruto is because he got strong enough to challenge him. Sasuke's always been like that. Either you're stronger than him and he wants to fight you or you're weaker than him and he thinks you're dirt. Kami, that was the worst crush of my entire life. I can't believe I fell for someone that screwed up."

Sakura's jaw dropped at Ino's statement. The thought of her rival not chasing Sasuke just didn't compute in her head. Finally, she managed to get out, "Well, you don't know him like I do! There really was a big change after the curse seal was put on him. It did something horrible to him. Sasuke-kun is strong though. He'll fight it off and come back to the Leaf before you know it. And even if he doesn't, Naruto and I promised we'd rescue him from Orochimaru when we get strong enough."

There was long silence following her words in which Ino kept her face angled towards the ground. Sakura shifted uncomfortably and was about to speak up again when her friend quietly said, "Sakura, one day you're going to realize that Sasuke isn't who you believe him to be and he never has been. Your dream is just that: a dream. I hope it's not too painful for you when it happens. More than that, I hope you're strong enough to walk away from the illusion when you realize that."

"What're you talking about?" Sakura asked. Ino didn't answer as she walked to the door. "Hey! Where're you going? Hokage-sama said to stay here!"

"For a walk. I doubt there'll be any news for awhile," Ino replied as she pulled the door open. As she started to step out, she grumbled, "I need to get away from the estrogen waves for awhile."

Sakura had jumped up and simultaneously yanked Ino back inside while slamming the door closed before she was consciously aware of her movements. She spun her friend around and started to yell, "I'm not done, dammit! Where do you get off telling me oh Kami you're bleeding!"

For a panicked instant, the medic thought that she had hurt her friend somehow when she'd grabbed her. Then Sakura noticed that the blood was coming from Ino's right nostril and eye, forming a gentle trickle down her face. Fear shot through her when she realized that the blonde girl's eyes were rolled up into her head and her face was twitching rapidly. Was she having a seizure? Some kind of fit? Sakura grabbed her friend to steady her as Ino made a strange whining sound of pain and grabbed the sides of her blonde head. The medic's concern grew worse when she noticed blood also running out of the girl's left ear. Something was happening inside her friend's head and she had no idea what, despite her medical training.

Sakura was just about to force Ino to lie on the floor and summon a medical team when the girl's fit stopped.

The medic felt a brief surge of relief when her friend's gray-blue eyes opened. Then the next moment the floor seemed to fall out from underneath her as the most terrifying and monstrous chakra she had ever felt in her life slammed into her senses. Sakura was barely aware of Ino's detached concern as she collapsed forward and grabbed onto her blonde friend. Someone was screaming so loudly it hurt her ears. She felt a brief moment of surprise when she realized she was making the sound, before another pulse of that evil and horrifying chakra ripped across her mind.

Ino wobbled slightly as Sakura collapsed to her knees and wrapped her arms around the blonde's waist. She felt…odd. Detached. Like everything was happening to her, but not really affecting her. She felt the alien chakra. She felt the terror inflicted on the animal part of her brain. But it merely passed through her mind, like water through a sieve. Her head felt weird. Like something had broken or ruptured. It hurt, but not in a totally bad way. She felt like she was waking up and fainting at the same time. Ino tried to focus, but all she could really do was hold Sakura's head and try to calm her down as she sobbed into her shirt. As she ran her hands through her friend's bubblegum-pink hair, the blonde girl tried to remember what she had seen moments before the terror struck her.

Wind and light. Fire and darkness. Two figures were facing each other across a great, featureless white plain. A glowing, blue-white human figure stood tall and determined. A massive, red-black canine form, ancient and proud, watched the other. Despite being featureless, there was more definition and depth to their forms than any physical detail could ever convey. They were souls in pure form. They were what someone looked like when every bit of the body and mind had been stripped away. There was nothing between either of them except the distance they stood apart from each other. Above, in a sky that was as pitch-black as the ground was pure-white, a massive sphere of energy grew over each figure. One was blue-white and swirled and shined with unrepressed energy as it grew larger. Its light grew too bright for human eyes to look at it after only a few moments.

The other sphere was an old, deep crimson color and it boiled and burned with a dark fire. It was at least a hundred times larger than the other mass of energy. A blistering heat that would sear any human's flesh in seconds came off the orb in waves. The crimson ball of energy looked almost identical to a red-giant star, though its power was growing, not dying. The blue-white sphere resembled a shining moon orbiting its burning star as the two grew larger in size and stronger in intensity. Ino remembered thinking that she was either going to be burned to death by the heat or irradiated into dust by the light at any moment. Just when she'd been absolutely sure she was going to die, the spheres reached their limits and rushed at each other. The figures moved parallel to the orbs of energy and all four impacted at the same time. The backlash of pure _power_ on a level she couldn't understand had hurled Ino back into herself. She'd seen Sakura's concerned face for an instant before the crippling wave of terror had swept over them.

And now she could barely understand what was going on. There was an annoying humming her head that wouldn't go away and Sakura refused to let go of her or calm down. Ino's hands kept stroking her friend's hair, worried about her but not able to do much about it. A red blotch on the girl's pale skin caught her attention. Another one appeared even as she watched. Ino wiped the drops away, annoyed at the crimson color marring her friend's smooth forehead. A second, more powerful surge in the chakra wave made her knees feel watery and she had to lean on Sakura's shoulders for a moment to catch her balance. Surprisingly, the girl seemed to be calming down with the second wave. Ino watched in idle curiosity as the medic slowly got control of herself. After several long moments, Sakura finally forced herself to her feet, though she still had to hang onto the blonde girl for support. She glanced at Ino and said something. The genin blinked. She heard the words, but her brain refused to make sense of them. Sakura was still fighting the wave's terror, so she didn't immediately notice her friend's lack of response. When she fought the fear off for a moment, the medic was able to get a good look at Ino's face.

The fact that the blonde girl didn't even flinch at Sakura's horrified shriek only worried the medic more.

Ino was vaguely aware of being dragged out of the office and down winding halls and open doorways. Everywhere they went, the same sight greeted them. People lying on the floor, screaming or crying in terror from the chakra wave. The blond girl noted that the chakra had only intensified in the few minutes since it began. The walls and lights twisted and warped as she was rushed along, making her wonder if she had woken from her dream or if she was still trapped in one. It was disorienting in a very bad way and it was made worse with the speed they were moving. Apparently Sakura took her attempts at slowing them down as a sign of imminent collapse on Ino's part, because the next thing the blonde knew the hall was moving away from her.

She blinked, then realized she wasn't running anymore. She looked down and saw pink hair. Huh. Sakura hadn't joked when she said she'd learned some of Tsunade's strength abilities. The medic was carrying her like she weighed no more than an infant. A powerful surge in the chakra made Ino's head feel like it was being split in two and Sakura stumbled in her run, only barely managing to keep them both from sprawling across the floor. The power was so intense it felt like her head would crumple inwards, piece by piece. Ino closed her eyes and gritted her teeth against the pain as it seemed to crush her skull. She was dead, she was going to die, this was it, she couldn't take the pressure anym-

The chakra suddenly relaxed and began to ebb away.

Ino opened eyes and stared at the white circle in front of her. It took her almost a minute to realize she was looking at Sakura's back and her body was as limp as a rag-doll in the other girl's arms. She couldn't even hold her head up. The bright fluorescent lights made her want to close her eyes to sleep and at the same time they kept her awake. Ino sighed in relief when they moved into a much dimmer room that was faintly illuminated by glowing medical machines. She felt Sakura carefully lay her down on a long and narrow bed that wasn't very comfortable. The blonde girl allowed her eyes to close as the last of the chakra wave faded.

She blinked her right eye in irritation at the blood began clotting and gumming the eyelid up. A low murmur of a couple different voices discussing something relaxed her, even though they sounded rather tense. She was able to make out a few words, though most of the conversation was a babble to her. She understood 'trauma,' 'Hokage,' and 'MRI,' whatever that was, but she couldn't concentrate hard to enough to focus on the rest. A cool object touching her face made her open her eyes to meet a pair of concerned green orbs looking down at her.

Sakura's voice spoke reassuringly to her as she cleaned the blood off Ino's face with a damp cloth, though she may as well have been speaking gibberish. The only word the blonde girl was able to understand was 'sleep,' so that's what she decided to do. Her vision darkened to Sakura calling out her name and grabbing her shoulder. She managed one final coherent thought that would have started a loud cat fight if the medic had actually heard it.

'You shouldn't worry so much Sakura. Don't want that big forehead to get wrinkles.'

* * *

Tsunade had been waiting impatiently for almost an hour for Kakashi to show up when she felt the chakra wave hit. Its raw power had sucked the air from her lungs and felt like a physical blow. Of course, she wasn't a Sannin for nothing and she only lost her composure for a minute before she was back on her feet. Judging from the loud thumps outside her door, her guards weren't so lucky. The Hokage stormed over to her newly replaced window and flung it open to look out over the Leaf.

It was like a scene from Hell.

Civilians, shinobi, even animals, everyone and everything was running about or collapsed on the ground screaming in mortal fear. Though it was still mid-afternoon, the sky had blackened without her noticing and the only light was an eerie red glow that came from the horizon off to the northwest. Tsunade narrowed her eyes. She had never personally felt its chakra, but there was only one creature with this much raw power on the continent.

Kyuubi.

Something was happening with the Kyuubi. She'd heard the stories and read the old reports. The demon fox's aura played on humans' animal instincts and made them feel like they were prey for the beast. Only shinobi of phenomenal caliber were able to resist its effects. As if the fox hadn't been strong enough to begin with that day fourteen years ago, its mere presence had been enough to cripple almost three-quarters of Konoha's forces. Only the strongest of the jounin and ANBU had been able to effectively fight alongside the Yondaime. The rest had been sitting ducks. No wonder most of them held a grudge against Naruto. Shinobi instinctively dislike and hate two major things: being helpless and anything stronger than them. The boy was a living reminder of both. Even when he d-

A second, stronger wave of chakra ripped across her senses as a halo of light of blue-white rippled across the sky from the north-west.

Tsunade's eyes widened in shock. She knew that chakra. Naruto. What the hell was he doing with the Kyuubi? This was their plan? All they're doing so far is giving everyone in the Leaf panic attacks. Perhaps with the addition of the boy's chakra to the Kyuubi's, maybe anyone who was familiar with him was able to fight off the effects of the wave. It certainly made it easier for her to withstand it.

A couple minutes later the door banged open and Kakashi rushed inside.

"Nice of you to join me," Tsunade growled in a manner that made the jounin almost as nervous as the chakra wave.

"That's Kyuubi! What's going on? I thought Naruto was in the hospital!" Kakashi demanded, his eye visibly worried.

"If you had shown up when I told you to, you would know that not only did Naruto escape two days ago, but he and the Kyuubi are planning some damn fool stunt out in the backwoods of Fire Country. Which they just managed to do," The Hokage said with a strong note of reprimand. Noticing the man didn't respond to her implied criticism, she grumbled a curse and said, "Your orders are to take the Nara boy and Gai's Hyuuga kid to go and investigate. If Gai himself doesn't have a mission, take him too as back-up. I want Naruto found, I want to know what the hell he just did, and I want to know as fast as you and your little doggies can run. Now get moving!"

Kakashi nodded and turned to run back out the door. The Hokage's voice calling his name stopped him just as he made it to the doorway.

"And Hatake-san, if you ever ignore me again when I send for you, I'll have you stripped to chuunin and made Umino-san's assistant," Tsunade said in an icy monotone that showed she was _deadly_ serious. "I don't care how guilty you feel about your dead friend, it's not to interfere with your work. You're an elite jounin of the Leaf and you will obey your commander's orders immediately and not whenever you feel like it. If you want to stare at the memorial for hours, do it on your time off. Is that clear?"

Kakashi wasn't as much surprised that she knew about Obito as he was that she had said anything about it. The Third had simply ignored his tardy habit or laughed at Kakashi's lame excuses. Then again, many people made the mistake of thinking Tsunade was _anything_ like Sarutobi and everyone who did wished they hadn't after the Fifth got through with them. It not like he enjoyed it or anything. He just couldn't help but think about his friend and stare at the marker for hours.

On the other hand, if he kept it up he was going to wind up Iruka's assistant.

The mere thought of such a thing made a quiver of fear race up his spine and it had nothing to do with the terror wave. He had no idea what was scarier: this woman angry at him or that man as his boss. Ugh, he was getting shivers thinking about either of them.

"Yes, Hokage-sama," The jounin said, before making a hasty exit.

Kakashi would rather face that damn fox than those two any day.

* * *

Konoha wasn't the only place that felt the Terror Wave (as survivors of the Kyuubi's original assault quickly came to call it.) The Hidden Sound and Waterfall were hit by its intensity hard, as they were closest in proximity to it. In fact, the residents of the Sound finally discovered something that terrified them even more than their master. Sasuke woke up after a post-training nap to blindly thrash about his room for several minutes before winding up on the floor. The feel of the second chakra in the wave both horrified and enraged him. Just the thought of Naruto having anything to do with that kind of power set his teeth on edge. He was still cursing the boy's name when Kabuto came to get him ten minutes later.

Elsewhere, Umino Iruka had been traveling home from the mission in Wind Country he'd left for weeks ago. He was eager to get back to Konoha to check on Naruto and to get back to his classes. One moment he was hurrying along and the next he was on the ground, feeling the same nightmarish presence that had haunted him for fourteen years. Memories of the sight of the demon and the death of his parents had crippled him until he felt the second chakra wave. Recognizing Naruto's energy, the chuunin had collected himself, then started running as fast as he could to Konoha with the other members of his team lagging behind.

Further away, but way too far inside Fire Country's borders for _anyone's_ comfort, a pair of blood-red eyes watched the glow with interest. The figure was one of two beings that didn't even flinch at the power of the chakra. In fact, this individual seemed almost pleased at the strength of the wave. If one had looked closely, one might've noticed the briefest ghost of a twitch at the corner of the man's mouth. But since the expression, and the man, was gone the next moment, one couldn't tell for certain if it was there at all.

And finally, far to the south, one other person stood and watched the strange light show over the forests of Fire Country. A pair of frost-green eyes didn't even blink at the intensity of the chakra, though they did watch with curiosity. When the second wave pulsed, the figure stood up straighter and grabbed the large gourd sitting next to him. He calmly leaped off the sand-blasted ruins he'd been perched on towards the dusty ground. As he neared the desert floor, a wave of sand rose up and caught him, then moved off to the north at _very_ high speeds with the figure riding it like a cross between a chariot racer and a surfer. Something was happening to the one who'd pulled him from the darkness and he didn't appreciate it one bit. He intended to be the first one there to assist the Uzumaki boy if he needed help.

After all, it would be fitting for Gaara to return the favor.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**General: **Okay, chapter four is out. I know this one had a _lot_ of dialogue in it, but hopefully it wasn't boring. The last three scenes were meant to go onto the next chapter, but I added them onto this one to give the story a little action. Hopefully it helped and didn't just confuse. Anyways, to stave off unnecessary questions, the next chapter will explain what Naruto and Kyuubi did as well as explain what happened to Ino. We'll also see Neji and Shikamaru (as well as **GAI** dramatic music.) Err, yeah. And as for the bit with Kakashi and Tsunade at the end, a lot of fics have her rolling her eyes at his lateness but not really doing anything about that, so I threw it in there. I think Kakashi would be better off if he moved on from Obito. I mean, remember and honor your friend and all, but don't stand for three hours _every_ day staring at his grave marker. But I have something later in the story revolving around that and it has to do with the Sharingan (bonus points for anyone that guesses it. Uh, okay, not really.) And the Sharingan madness makes senses to me. Every one with it seems obsessed with something (Itachi and power or evil or whatever, Sasuke and Itachi, Kakashi and Obito's memory and Icha Icha and wearing a mask all the time, etc.) That's not to say the Sharingan is weak, but it'll be a double edged sword in this story.

As for the representation of Kyuubi…Eh, I thought the demon would be cooler this way. I've pictured it as a cunning, knowledgeable (almost intellectual) evil fiend, so I wrote him like that. As for why it's so helpful to Naruto, I figure the fox is old enough and smart enough to assist the boy that keeps it alive. Naruto's problems are the Kyuubi's and vice versa. And since there seems to be no set gender on the fox, I refer to it as 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she,' unless it's in a human shape. I may have missed a few pronouns during proofreading. Just letting readers know to avoid confusion.

To anyone complaining or requesting changes to the speed of the update or chapter length or paragraph length or anything, to put it politely: don't bother. I'm writing an average of forty pages a _week_, when other authors barely update every two _months_. Even once a week makes the chapters a little rushed, so I will not cut them down further in size to update faster. As for story format, I prefer to write long and detailed chapters as opposed to short and half-assed ones. If there is something that could be done to make the way I write better, then tell me in a review. For example, **Cobra-100** made the perfect criticism/suggestion when he said that my chapters can be too detailed and action light and suggested I put in mini-cliffhangers to keep it interesting. That's more than fine by me. I appreciate comments like that and I'm going to try to adapt future chapters to take them into consideration. However, telling me to change something just because you don't like it is ridiculous and I'll ignore any reviews like that. I don't tell anyone else how to write, so they shouldn't tell me how to write. That's goes for writing style as well as plot. Suggest anything you like, but don't take it personally if I do something completely different. For instance, I gave people warning in Chap 1 that this story might turn out Naruto X Ino X (someone else.) I haven't decided yet, but whether I do or don't include that will depend on how hard it is for me to write a triangle relationship (read: three-way) and whether I feel I can write it without weakening the story. Reader's personal views (read: WTF! WHAT U DOIN FOR!) and preferences (read: This sux! I hsate 3way stuff!) will likely be ignored. I'm stubborn like that. If you don't like it, there're plenty of other Naruto fics out there. I'm only saying this now, to avoid complaints later. Anyways, rant done. And to everyone who has posted good criticism and intelligent reviews, thank you a great deal. I really appreciate the feedback.

I know I keep promising more action, but it looks like the pace will pick up next chapter. Or the one after. Ah hell, whatever.

**Jutsu: **Ah, for everyone going "Crucible, wtf?" your explanation awaits.

**Rutsubo **(Crucible) (Unranked) – A powerful, but outdated jutsu that was used in rituals rather than combat.

The Crucible forces the mind to face its self truths and self perceived weaknesses in different forms. It is set for one to eight tests (depending on how many Gates the user wishes to open) and the trials grow in intensity and strength as the user progresses through them. The subject must accept the truth to pass a challenge (failure results in insanity or death.) Each challenge changes the personality or priorities of the subject permanently (though they can revert over time.) It's should be noted that the personality changes aren't necessarily good, but rather what the subconscious thinks needs be changed.

With each challenge passed, a Celestial Gate opens (starting from the Initial Gate up.) The chakra let loose is more concentrated and less self-destructive than the current means of opening the Gates. This makes the jutsu useless in combat but perfect for rituals. The Crucible also opens the pathways to the Celestial Gates, giving the subject the ability to open the Gates in combat (though they still have to be trained on how to open them manually.) Ex. Naruto passed three challenges, so he now has the ability to use his first three Celestial Gates. He still has to train if he wants to actually use them though. Technically, he can open the first Demonic Gate, but only if he has the Kyuubi's assistance in controlling the demon chakra (and it still needs the three normal Gates to be opened before it can be activated.)

Kyuubi used this jutsu to force open the first 'Demonic' Gate so it could direct its chakra through Naruto and heal him. It's unknown how or where the demon learned this skill.

**Kyuubi's concentration of the Gates' energy** – The method the Kyuubi used to 'constrict' the Gates to intensify the chakra flow will be explained in a later chapter.

**Advanced Bloodline Unlimiter** - Naruto's Advanced Bloodline.

The body is rewired on a genetic level to remove the maximum limits on body strength, mental knowledge, and chakra levels. In other words, there's no limit to how far someone with the Unlimiter can go. Where other shinobis' growth begins to slow down as they get older, someone with the Unlimiter will keep growing (power/knowledge wise; not height wise) as fast as a kid would. They can learn anything or get as strong as they want, assuming they put the effort into it. A built in filtration and systematic amnesia process scrubs out unnecessary information after something is learned, preventing information overload and refining the final 'product' of whatever is learned.

**NOTE:** This ability does **NOT** speed up the growth or learning process. It simply keeps it from ever slowing down and/or refines the final piece of knowledge. The bearer of the Unlimiter still has to train or study just as hard as a normal person (much to Naruto's ire.)

The Yondaime chose Naruto to bear the Kyuubi because of his Bloodline. His body was able to easily adapt to the demon's presence and even take advantage of it (ie. his healing factor, his knowing the fox's language, his heightened stamina, etc.) Though it's thought the Sandaime knew about Naruto's genetics, the Third probably kept it a secret as most of Konoha would panic at the thought of the kid bearing both a youkai _and_ an Advanced Bloodline.

Naruto is currently the only known living person with the Unlimiter. His clan is extinct and there are no known records of it.

**Hikanryou** (Non-Detection Field) (C Rank) – Non-elemental chakra emission blocking field. Nin-jutsu. Seven seals long.

Like the name implies, the field makes any chakra use undetectable by a ninja's chakra ESP. It blocks chakra emissions inside the field, but nothing else. I.E. A Chidori performed in the field couldn't be sensed, but its chi-chi-chi sound could still be heard and the glow from the chakra could still be seen.

There is the possibility this jutsu screws up ocular based Bloodline Limits that see chakra (but only their chakra based detection.)

Kyuubi pilfered this jutsu from the Mist several centuries ago and modified it slightly. The jutsu was lost soon afterwards. The Mist would probably pay handsomely for its return if they ever found out it still exists.

**Tenma Fuu: Ketsu Bunshin **(Demon Seal: Blood Clone) (A or S Rank) – Non-elemental (?) modifications of a kage bunshin into a full flesh and blood replica of the user.

A blood clone can take damage, use any of the original user's skills (though their lifespan shortens if they use chakra), and is completely independent of the user (though still instilled with a sense of loyalty.) The clone lasts as long as its demon chakra holds out. It can sacrifice its demon chakra to make regular chakra (about a 1:3 ratio) so it can perform jutsu. It can also repair its body by using demon chakra. It can only be dispelled by being totally destroyed, running out of chakra, or by damaging the seal on its forehead.

The full effects of this seal aren't known, but there are noticeable deviations in the personalities between the user and the clone, despite the identical memories. Unknown whether Tsunade will outlaw its use or not.

**Shinkoumen **(Midnight Veil) (B Rank) – A powerful non-elemental camouflage technique. Nin-jutsu (though it acts like gen-jutsu.) Eleven seals long.

A thin, metal-like skin covers all visible parts of the body. The skin turns the user invisible, blocks their scent and body heat, muffles their sound (except speech), and dampens their physical effects on the environment (like footprints and stuff.) It would be an A Rank move, except it has a massive weakness: sunlight. During the day all effects of the jutsu are weakened. The body appears as a distorted, clear shape that is mostly invisible when still, but makes a noticeable glimmer when moving. Any jounin worth their salt can track or detect the user during the day, limiting its effective use to night.

As a minor historical note, this jutsu suffer much debate after its creation as to whether it was a gen-jutsu or a nin-jutsu. Eventually it was decided that it was indeed a nin-jutsu, as it physically alters the environment rather than crafting an illusion.

The Kyuubi copied this move verbatim from the techno-ninjas of the now extinct Hidden Village of Steel, as well as several of their other skills. The fox has no idea whether or not any other Hidden Steel jutsu survived to any other countries.

Aaaaand that's it. Damn, that was a lot of jutsu. I may or may not have more in Chap. 5, but Chap. 6 will definitely have a ton.

**Reviews: **I ranted about it in the General section, but just to be clear: _please_ leave intelligent comments when reviewing. I appreciate those more than anything else, even if they're criticism.

(Reviews Removed)

Damn, that was a lot of reviews to respond to. To everyone I missed, I'm not ignoring you; I just want to get this sucker posted before noon. Thanks to _everyone_ who reviewed (even those who I complained about.) I hope you guys like Chap. 4 as much as Chap. 3. Review however you like, even you hate my story. I'll probably read it anyways (I'm obsessive like that.)

**Next Chapter: **Chap. 4posted 3/25/05. Next chapter will be out, err, next Friday I think. So look for it April 1st! (4/01/05 for digital people.)


	5. Run Away! Run Away!

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: The Kyuubi and Naruto share a long discussion in which Naruto learns about his odd experience, his abilities, and their enemies. He and the Kyuubi concoct a plan that may help them survive, but they escape Konoha to pull it off. Tsunade, Ino, and Sakura encounter an odd bunshin who gives them a general overview of Naruto's plans. A chakra wave that terrorizes anyone who feels it surges across Fire Country and beyond. Ino has a strange seizure when she feels the wave. Kakashi is sent along with three others to find Naruto and return him to Konoha.

**Chap. 5 – "Retreat! Run Away! Run away!"**

Hatake Kakashi was not in a happy mood. Okay, a more accurate description would be Kakashi's pissed. His eye tracked his summoned nin-dog (an odd pug by the name of Pakkun) as the little canine stopped for the fifteenth or sixteenth time in the past hour to pick up the trail. Which he had lost…_again_. They had to stop…_again_. Naruto had tricked them…_AGAIN_.

Yeeeah, Kakashi was pissed.

"Dammit, lost it again, huh?" Nara Shikamaru grumbled in annoyance as he landed next to the copy-nin while they waited for the dog to pick up the scent. "When the hell did Naruto of all people learn to cover his tracks? I thought you said Jiraiya-sama was only teaching him combat and mental skills, not evasion tricks good enough to fool hunter-nins."

"He didn't learn this from Jiraiya," Kakashi replied as he watched Pakkun. Behind them, Hyuuga Neji and Maito Gai landed on the soft forest floor. "He has a…partner, for lack of a better word, that probably knows more jutsu than any Hidden Village. Maybe even two Hidden Villages combined. This is child's play for Naruto's ally."

"His partner?" Neji coolly asked as he walked up next to them. His Byakugan was active and the veins jutting out on his face made him look like he was in danger of a stroke. The fact that he was breathing hard only added to the impression. "Who would be working with him? And who is skilled enough to evade the ANBU guards while assisting in his escape from Konoha?"

"His ally is more than skin deep," Kakashi muttered as he thoughtfully eyed the surrounding forest. "It is also likely responsible for Naruto's sudden departure."

"I saw how injured he was, Kakashi-sensei," Neji replied as he finally shut down his Blood Limit and panted from exertion. "Unless this partner was carrying him, there's no way Naruto could have left on his own power. He certainly shouldn't be responsible for that…wave we felt."

"Naruto-kun is far stronger and more resilient than he appears, Neji-kun," Gai answered as he approached his student and offered him a canteen. The Hyuuga eyed it for a moment, before taking it and gratefully draining half in one go. "He also has a habit of finding resources in unexpected places and performing seemingly impossible feats. You of all people should know that."

"I still get the impression you aren't telling us something," Shikamaru grumbled as he turned to look back at the two shinobi. "You and all the other jounin were acting like the devil himself came back to town. We all felt that freaky-ass chakra wave, but you older guys seem to recognize it from somewhere. It'd be smarter and less troublesome in the long run if you just told us now rather than beating around the bush."

Gai gave a near inaudible sigh as he watched his rival. Kakashi's shoulders had a stiffness to them that was out of the norm for the laid back ninja. He knew this was hard on the man. Not only was one of his former students in serious trouble and most likely dead or worse, but the chakra wave was probably dragging up unpleasant memories of the Yondaime's death. Kakashi carried large burden of survivor's guilt from that day, though he had dealt with it better than he had Obito's loss. The Copy-ninja had been tense and irritable from the minute they'd left Konoha and the frustration caused by trying to track Naruto's well hidden trail wasn't helping matters. Gai himself was acting far more reserved than he usually did, both from the fresh memory of the chakra wave and his rival's somber mood.

It had been almost a full day since they'd left Konoha. The red glow had been still on the northwestern horizon, so they'd quickly headed towards it. Kakashi had summoned a few of his nin-dogs and set them out ahead to find the trail and they'd started off at a good pace.

…Until the dogs came back with the message that there was no trail to follow. While the Copy-ninja had been debating this turn of events with his summons, Neji had activated his Byakugan and used the telescopic and x-ray abilities to scan the ground over a distance. Gradually, he was able to pick up slight irregularities in the forest that led to the northwest. A bent twig here, several meters later a depression in the mud there, and the occasional disturbed brush slowly made the trail apparent to his vision when he lined them all up over a great distance.

When the boy had told Kakashi, the jounin had promptly ordered him to take the lead and dispelled all his dogs except Pakkun. However, even with his Blood Limit, Neji still had a hell of a time keeping the trail. They had to stop every few minutes for him to line up the path again. Apparently, Naruto wasn't just satisfied with covering his tracks and had apparently run around in all directions like the hyper freak he was, leading them on a wild goose chase for half a day. Unfortunately, they'd been forced to stick to following the trail no matter where it lead, as the glow from the horizon had long since faded and northwestern Fire Country was a lot of ground to cover.

Then they'd caught a break. Pakkun picked up the scent five hours into the trip. Kakashi would have been a lot more pleased had they not been a measly two hours out from the village as the crow flies. As it was, with both pug and Hyuuga tracking it, the trail became considerably easier to follow. The farther they got out from Konoha, the easier it became to track Naruto. Seven hours straight out from the village and it seemed the boy was just getting sloppy. Even Shikamaru was easily following his footprints and the lazy boy had no advanced training in tracking whatsoever. Pakkun was unerringly following the course and Neji was able to give his eyes a needed break. Half a day of constant Byakugan use and non-stop running were straining his reserves.

The trail was becoming easier to keep to, as Naruto had apparently given up on running all over the place and had gone into a dead run. Both Gai and Shikamaru made amazed comments as they looked at the boy's stride and jump lengths. They all knew the blonde was a stamina freak, but to keep running at top speed for hours after just getting out of the hospital? That was just ridiculous. Kakashi kept his opinion on the matter to himself, though he did pick up his own pace. They started making good time.

Until they hit a snag about fourteen hours straight out from the village.

The trail was vanishing again. The scent disappeared the further they advanced, the footprints faded, and the other little signs of disturbance became as scarce as when they had first started. Neji had to activate his Byakugan again for them to get anywhere and was starting to lag in his pace from the constant chakra exertion. So now here they were, in a small clearing in the middle of the woods of northern Fire Country with the lot of them gawking at the trees like idiots. If felt like there was a big sign above their heads that said, "Sucker!" in Naruto's hideous handwriting. Shikamaru half expected to see 'Kick Me' scrawled on the backs of his fellow shinobi. If the situation weren't so serious, he'd have bet his lifesavings that this whole mess was an elaborate prank played on them by the loud blonde.

He wasn't reassured by the thought of their quarry having an accomplice. This talk of an 'ally' worried him. He wasn't genius for nothing, after all.

"Well, are you guys gonna tell us?" The lazy Nara asked, as he crossed his arms over his flak jacket. Kakashi didn't reply as he continued focusing on the surrounding forest.

Gai frowned thoughtfully and said, "Rival, I know it's the big rule, but in this case-"

"I'm not breaking the Sandaime's law unless it's life or death, Gai," The Copy-ninja interrupted in a cold voice. "I expect you to do the same."

"And my point is, if we encounter Naruto and he's been influenced by his ally, then it _will_ be life or death," Gai replied in a firm tone, not intimidated in the slightest at Kakashi's attitude. "You should know, considering you were the one who told me about the boy's abilities."

The copy-nin went dead quiet for several moments as he considered the tai-jutsu master's words. At length, he sighed and said, "Well, Hokage-sama isn't happy with me as it is, so what's breaking the big rule on top of it? Tell them. We'll take responsibility for it when we get back."

Pakkun finally stopped sniffing around and nodded at Kakashi.

"Tell them as we move. Pakkun's found the trail again," The jounin said as he jumped into the trees with the dog. Gai motioned for the two chuunin to follow as he leapt after his rival.

When they were moving at a decent clip again, Shikamaru looked over to Gai and asked, "Why would the Third make a law involving Naruto?"

The tai expert frowned as he did a casual side flip to follow a sudden change in direction by Kakashi. How to put this to them? After a minute or so of thinking, he said, "Tell me, what do you two know about the Kyuubi no Kitsune?"

* * *

"Is he going to be alright, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked as she set down a tray laden with a light lunch and tea on the Hokage's desk. Tsunade didn't answer for a couple moments as she stared out the window of her office. Her student frowned a little and walked around to gently lay a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Tsunade-sama?"

The Hokage jerked suddenly and became a blur of motion that ended with her fist halted an inch from Shizune's face. The younger medic flinched in surprise, but made no move to back away as Tsunade shakily sat back down in her chair.

"Or maybe I should be asking are _you_ going to be alright?" Shizune gently said as she poured some tea for her mentor and handed it to her. A loud 'shrak' sound echoed through the large office as the Hokage accidentally crushed the cup into wet porcelain mush.

"Dammit, what's wrong with me today?" Tsunade asked, as she glared down at her hands. She almost jerked in surprise again when Shizune carefully pried her hand open and wiped it clean with a hand towel.

"I'd say you're worried about Naruto-kun," The young medic calmly replied. "I'd be worried too if someone that close to me was involved in that chakra wave."

"You managed to sneak up on me and I nearly punched you through the wall, Shizune-kun," The Fifth angrily said as the young woman wiped the tea off the floor. "That's more than a little worried."

"You didn't hit _me_ though," Shizune replied with a slight smile as she set the grungy towel aside. She pointed at the large, jagged holes scattered about in the walls and the ceiling of the room. "Unlike the ANBU that continue to bother you for some suicidal reason."

Tsunade let out a tired chuckle even as she sweat-dropped. She said, "Well, I happen to like the extra light in here and the fresh breeze feels nice."

"Of course," Shizune deadpanned, bringing a surprised smile to the Hokage's face at her student's sudden bout of dry humor. "It has nothing to do with the Council and the ANBU Commander's repeated demands for you to see them."

The Fifth's expression darkened as she said, "If those fools want an audience then they'd damn well better show up here in person. _I'm_ the Godaime Hokage and _I'm_ in charge of this backwater dump of a Village. Sending a couple lackeys to _fetch_ me because they feel they're too important to walk over here themselves is not something I'll tolerate. It's a good thing I left the Leaf when I did all those years ago, because if I had caught _any_ of them treating Sarutobi-sensei like this I would've started a blood bath. He may have put up with their crap, but it'll be a frosty day in Hell before I will. When they have the balls to show up in person, then I'll deal with them."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Shizune calmly pointed out as she half-sat on the edge of the Hokage's desk. "This can be considered a crisis, with the ninja ranks and the civilians panicking. It may only add needless strife to the situation."

Tsunade snorted as her scowl deepened, though it wasn't directed at her student.

"One, if they can't handle themselves in the middle of a minor crisis like this, then they're dead the next time the Sound invades. With an idiot for a Commander, it's no wonder the ANBU take such heavy casualties all the time. The Council is mostly filled with bureaucratic, simpering old fools. I'm not surprised the stigma regarding Naruto was tolerated, if they kept interfering with Sarutobi-sensei's protective actions," She began as she leaned back and ticked off the points with her fingers. "Two, they need to learn to come to me only if a situation is impossible. The Hokage is _not_ on errand call for any official who wants their hand held. Three, if the chain of command isn't clearly established now, then it could get us killed during a real emergency. I don't care if I bruise some egos or bust some heads if it keeps us all alive in the long run. I have more important problems to worry about than spending my time reassuring a bunch of prejudiced idiots."

"And you don't want to hear what they have to say on this matter," Shizune said as she watched the Hokage.

Tsunade stiffened for a moment, before she replied, "I can't fool you, can I? No, I don't want to hear what they have to say. I already know what they want."

"To declare Naruto-kun a missing-nin and to have him hunted down," Her student finished for her, her dark eyes downcast.

"Not if I can help it," Tsunade growled. "He's coming back. He gave his word. He'll be back the First of May next year or he'll be dead. For Naruto, it's as simple as that."

"But if _both_ the Council majority and the ANBU Commander stand against you on this, you won't have a choice," Shizune countered with a worried tone. "That was a law made by the First to avoid-"

"Being forced to follow poor leadership if the Hokage is acting foolishly or is growing senile," The Godaime interrupted. "Yes, I know that. But my grandfather also set it up so they can't _completely_ overrule the Hokage. Otherwise, what's the point in having a Kage at all if the supreme leader can be bossed around? Anyways, if Naruto is declared a missing-nin, I'll just make sure he isn't high on anyone's priorities and give him a chance to come home without getting killed."

"So, 'no hostilities' orders and maybe a C Rank?" The younger of the medics replied, with a resigned yet hopeful tone.

Tsunade gritted her teeth and pressed her fingers to her forehead while she said, "I don't think I'll be able to pull that off. Naruto has learned both a jutsu from the Forbidden Scroll and a rare A Rank battle technique. Not only that, but he's been a Sannin's personal student for the past year and a half. We unfortunately added all those facts to his official record when he first left after that Uchiha brat's defection. A training trip can be declared an extended mission with my approval so a nin can keep receiving pay, but the standard procedure is to update the shinobi's profile before they leave. It's for security and it's normally a good thing, but in this case all the Commander will have to do is look at Naruto's file to know he's no ordinary genin. And that's _before_ we get into the whole mess with Kyuubi."

"Wait, does the profile say he knows the Fourth's technique?" Shizune tensely asked. If it got out that Naruto knew the personal jutsu of the legendary Yondaime…

"No, I made sure it was put in as a general A Rank jutsu," Tsunade firmly replied, much to her student's relief. "Naruto is already known as the Yondaime's Legacy. I want to avoid as much connection between the two as possible until the time is right, especially where the Council is concerned."

"Why?" Shizune asked curiously. At the Hokage's steady stare, she suddenly realized, "Your replacement! You want Naruto-kun to take over as Hokage when you retire."

Tsunade nodded and said, "Naruto would make a perfect Rokudaime with a few years of seasoning and heavy training. It's come to my attention that he has an…abilitythat gives him the potential to exceed even the Yondaime. On top of that, he also has the Kyuubi. If he wants it badly enough, Naruto could exceed any human on the continent."

A dark, weary expression spread across the Hokage's face as she muttered, "The Leaf needs somebody with that kind of power."

"But Tsunade-sama, you're one of the Three," Shizune said, a concerned look on her face as she watched her mentor. "Even Orochimaru hesitates to attack Konoha with you and Jiraiya-sama here. That's what this whole psychological campaign of his is about, right?"

"Partially, though I think he wants to wear us down in a war of attrition before taking us head on again," Tsunade replied. She leaned back in her chair, her position unintentionally emphasizing her bountiful assets. Shizune glanced away with a bit of a blush as her mentor continued, "Orochimaru hesitates for now, but that's more because he wants to finish us all off all at once in one of his elaborate schemes. He doesn't fear me or Jiraiya anymore. If he were in his old body, I would have about an even chance at beating him and Jiraiya would rip him apart. It would be costly, but we'd almost certainly win. However, with that kin-jutsu of his, he has all of his knowledge and skill put into a brand new and fresh body. He doesn't have to hold back in the slightest or worry about the price his body pays for using his jutsu like I do. Jiraiya and I are powerful, but we're getting older. Orochimaru isn't. The two of us together could still beat him, but it'd likely cost us our lives."

"And that's where Naruto-kun comes into play?" Shizune asked as she poured herself a cup of the still warm tea.

"Yes and no," Tsunade replied as she stared up at the ceiling. "Naruto can exceed even the Yondaime. Only four or five people in the last _century_ can brag that potential. The Fourth even kicked the shit out of Orochimaru once for insulting Jiraiya. I spent about three hours piecing Orochimaru back together afterwards. Yondaime walked away without a scratch. And if Naruto can exceed even him..."

"Then only a suicidal fool would challenge the Leaf," Her student finished. Shizune stared down at her cup for a moment before she said, "And you want him here, where you or Jiraiya can watch over him to teach him how to be the leader we need."

"Exactly," The Godaime said as she leaned forward enough to look at her apprentice. "If those idiots on the Council had their way, they would have him killed or driven out of the village, probably right into the arms of one of our enemies. They already know Naruto is determined to become Hokage, but if it got out the he has a connection to Yondaime, even if it is only through his techniques, then they'll interfere and I can't have that. This goes beyond my personal feelings for the boy. I refuse to allow a group of simple-minded, short-sighted fools to make our greatest asset into our worst enemy. For good or bad, Naruto is our future and I for one want him on our side. His mind has held up remarkably well considering the life he's led so far, but he'll eventually be pushed over the edge if they keep this shit up."

"And declaring him a traitor and a missing-nin just might cross the line, especially when the Council would be more forgiving to someone else, like that Uchiha boy," Shizune said, her head nodding as Tsunade's attitude began to make sense. "No wonder you don't want to talk to any of them."

"Can you blame me?" Tsunade grumbled as she leaned forward. She grimaced and rubbed at her shoulder with one hand.

"No, not really," Shizune replied as she set her cup down. She quickly moved behind the Hokage and grabbed the Sannin's shoulders before the older woman had a chance to react. Channeling a small amount of healing chakra into her fingers, the medic began to gently massage her mentor's muscles. "What I can blame you for is working yourself up like this and trying to hide it from me. Or did you think I didn't notice you rattling around in the kitchen at 3:00 AM this morning?"

Tsunade groaned slightly as some of the tension left her knotted shoulders. Despite her annoyance at her student for catching her off guard in her own office, she couldn't summon up the energy to fight with the younger medic. Instead, the Sannin allowed herself to relax under Shizune's skilled fingers. Damn, that woman would butcher the masseuse market if she ever felt inclined to open her own business.

It still didn't shake the dark thoughts plaguing Tsunade's mind.

"I'm worried about him," She finally admitted after several minutes of silence. "A lot. I don't think he's scared me this much since his heart nearly stopped during that fight with Orochimaru and his boy-toy."

Shizune stayed quiet as she kept rubbing her mentor's shoulders. She sensed that Tsunade wanted to talk rather than get feedback for the moment. Well, she was used to the Sannin not listening to her, so she'd bear with it.

"Hell, at least with Orochimaru and his flunky I knew what they were going to do," The Hokage continued. "This deal with the Kyuubi on the other hand… It's a demon older than our recorded history and it's been trapped inside Naruto for almost fifteen years. I have _no_ idea what games it's playing. It could have a hundred different plans in place. It's had a decade and a half to plan everything out and Naruto isn't the most suspicious person to begin with. Even with his stubborn streak, he'd stand no chance against that demon. And as a medic, I'm scared out of my mind that's he going to reopen all his injuries and bleed to death in the middle of the woods. Or run into Akatsuki again and without Jiraiya's help this time. Or that the chakra wave alerted every country within a hundred miles and their nins are going to find him before ours do."

"So I take it you're worried," Shizune gently said as she channeled chakra into a particularly dense knot of muscle.

Tsunade snorted and said, "Yeah, you could say that."

The younger medic thought for a couple minutes, while idly massaging the back of Hokage's neck, before she said, "Well, judging from the attack on Naruto-kun and the message he left behind, I'd say the Kyuubi is pretty worried about something. It may just be taking advantage of a bad situation like you suspect, but there's a strong possibility that the fox genuinely perceived a threat and is trying to deal with the problem alongside Naruto-kun. It's never acted in this manner before, at least not that we know of, so there's a solid chance it's not misleading Naruto-kun.

"Of course, I could easily be wrong or there could be a threat and it's manipulating Naruto-kun on top of it, but remember that a threat to Naruto-kun is a threat to Kyuubi and vice versa. It's in the demon's personal interest to keep him alive and healthy. And though I hate the thought of it being something so evil, I have to say there's nothing stronger on this continent or perhaps even the world that could be watching out for Naruto-kun. Even if he is being manipulated, the Kyuubi will probably keep him safe, if only for its own designs."

Tsunade let out a tired chuckle as she said, "Shizune-chan, how is it you can reassure me and scare the crap out of me better than anyone else and all at the same time?"

"Skill, I suppose," Shizune replied with a small smile on her face. "And years of practice dealing with you when you're stubborn."

The older medic half turned to look up at her student. Tsunade's soft-featured face marred into a frown as she said, "About that, Shiz-"

"Hokage-sama, the ANBU Commander is here to see you," One of the guards said as he opened the door and leaned inside. His face took on a curious look as he saw the unusual position the two medics were in.

"I healed the last of the tears in the ligament fibers of your shoulder," Shizune casually said to Tsunade as she stepped around to the front of the desk and gathered up the tray and its now cold meal. With her back to the other shinobi, she gave a small wink to the Hokage before she continued, "Next time be more careful when you're training with Sakura-chan. I may not be around to patch you up."

"Thank you, Shizune-kun," Tsunade calmly replied, though it was easy to tell she was annoyed at being interrupted in their conversation. To the guard she said, "Send the Commander in."

"Ah, yes Hokage-sama!" The man said, not hiding his confusion very well. He openly stared at Shizune as she walked by, until an angry 'ahem' from the Godaime snapped him out of his thoughts. The expression of Tsunade's face made it apparent that he'd better go get the Commander.

_Now_.

Tsunade made an annoyed face as the now pale man scurried out of the room. The first moment of relaxation in two days and that blasted Commander just _has_ to ruin it. On top of her worry for Naruto and the whole mess he'd caused, there were all the numerous panicked and injured civilians that had swamped the hospital and left the staff short handed. That was stressing as she made it a point to always have available medical personnel to deal with the constant inflow of injured shinobi, which had only increased after Orochimaru's little decree. As the Hokage, she refused to tolerate one of her ninjas dying because some fool fell down a flight of stairs in a blind panic and occupied a doctor's time. And then there was that whole issues with Sakura's blonde friend. The MRI results were odd and she wanted to spend a bit of time checking the Yamanaka girl over. Time she was unlikely to have with all the complaints and idiots eating up her schedule.

Tsunade restrained the urge to send the ANBU Commander through a wall as the man burst into her office and started prattling on about the 'Terror Wave.' Kami, the junk people come up with. Like a bunch of panicking, retarded sheep. The Godaime sighed as she got ready to deal with this annoyance, which would be whenever the Commander ran out of steam and let her get a word in.

Ugh, why did she ever allow that blasted brat to convince her to come back to this village anyways?

* * *

Shikamaru shook his head to clear some of the cobwebs in it. He jerked as his foot almost slipped off the damp branch he'd just landed on. The sudden jolt of adrenaline was more than enough to wake him up all the way. They had just broken camp, as Gai finally managed to convince Kakashi that they needed to rest after almost thirty hours of running. The copy-nin had agreed when his rival pointed out that they'd be in no condition to fight if they found Naruto and whoever else while they were dead on their feet. Gai had taken first watch, while Kakashi dispelled Pakkun and went to sleep immediately. Neji hadn't even bothered to set up a bedroll. He'd just curled up in a somewhat comfortable spot under a tree and was out before his head hit the proverbial pillow (which in this case was his side-pouch resting on a tree root.) Shikamaru, on the other hand, had lain awake for a couple hours thinking about what Gai had told them earlier.

Naruto was the Kyuubi-vessel. The adults had lied to them this whole time. The Yondaime hadn't killed the demon. He'd trapped it in a newborn infant. That infant was their friend. The villagers hated him. Most of the Leaf-nins hated him too. He trained under Jiraiya-sama to control the fox. A _very_ deadly group of people was after him. They almost killed him two weeks ago. Naruto somehow healed up overnight. He'd easily escaped and evaded detection. He caused that freaky terror somehow. They had to find him. He might be crazy or possessed. Possessed-Naruto equals Dangerous-Naruto. Half of the continent was probably sending nins to investigate. They'd have to deal with any interlopers they might meet along the way. The dangerous group could already have beaten them there and abducted Naruto. Or the Sound could have. Or any of the other countries that probably had agents inside Konoha's territory.

Assuming, of course, Naruto had even survived.

When you have an IQ in excess of 200 and you've just learned some disturbing information, you don't tend to get much sleep with your brain chewing over all the details. Shikamaru hadn't slept much and he hadn't sleep well. The only other person more exhausted than him was Neji. Even after sleeping like a rock for six hours straight, the Hyuuga boy was still beat. He'd never had cause to keep his Byakugan active for so long at one time before and the constant chakra use and eyestrain were getting to him. He was to the point where he left the Byakugan off unless they lost the trail and then he only opened it for a minute or so at a time. The other chuunin was lagging and his reactions were slowing down. In fact…

Shikamaru moved quickly and grabbed the back of Neji's coat as the pale boy almost stepped right of the branch he was standing on. The lazy chuunin pulled him back onto the tree limb and didn't let go until Neji waved him off.

"Thank you," The other chuunin said, showing a gratitude that wouldn't have been present two years ago. "That would have been most embarrassing."

"And painful," Shikamaru dryly replied as he leaned his head over the edge and eyed the sixty foot drop to the forest floor. In the trees ahead of them, Kakashi, Gai, and Pakkun (who'd been re-summoned when they'd broken camp) stopped and glanced back.

"You two alright?" Gai hollered, even though he was only thirty feet away. The Copy-ninja and the pug both flinched at the volume. The shout echoed throughout the semi-shadowed forest around them.

"We're fine. Just had a little slip up," The Nara genius called back, at a considerably more reasonable level. He glanced at Neji, "Ready?"

At the boy's nod, the group moved again and continued leaping through the trees, though now at a slightly less hectic pace. Shikamaru noticed Neji redoubling his pace to keep up with them.

"Hey, don't push yourself too hard," He drawled out, even as he did a front flip over a large branch. "There's a reason you Hyuugas only use your eyes for combat and spying, you know."

"Yes, I know," Neji said, still managing to sound aloof and annoyed even though he was panting. "When I get back to Konoha, I'll increase my stamina training. I may even practice keeping my Byakugan active for long periods of time. Though my eyes and head hurt, I haven't pushed myself like this for quite some time. Under other circumstances, I could find it invigorating. I'll speak to Hiashi-sama about it when we return."

"Sounds like a plan," Shikamaru replied, not showing the slightest bit of envy at the other boy's superior fighting ability. "Just don't kill yourself from chakra exhaustion."

"Hmph. I have more common sense than that," The Hyuuga boy muttered as dove through a gap between several boughs. He smoothly caught a branch on the other side and swung himself onto another limb. Damn, it was annoying traveling in the canopy of the forest. It gave him a better vantage point when using the Byakugan, but the thick foliage still slowed them down. Not to mention that all the extra acrobatics weren't helping his stamina levels any. In mid-jump, Neji spared a quick glance at Shikamaru to make sure the other chuunin had cleared the hurdle.

And promptly smacked face first into a wall.

Shikamaru landed on a branch behind him just in time to catch Neji as he (again) nearly fell into the forest below. The Hyuuga looked up, even as he rubbed his stinging face, to see that he had slammed into Gai's back. The jounin had barely noticed the impact and was watching something with great interest. Neither chuunin could see what it was as he was blocking their vision. After helping Neji regain his balance, Shikamaru moved up beside the tai-jutsu master.

"What's up?" The lazy chuunin asked.

"See for yourself," Gai replied as he nodded in the direction ahead of them. "Kakashi's taking a closer look now."

"What are yo- …Holy shit," Shikamaru said as he looked through the forest.

What appeared to be a massive wall blocked their path. Jumping onto a branch several feet ahead, Shikamaru got a better look at the odd structure. It _was_ a massive wall and it was made entirely out of fallen trees. It looked like pictures he's seen at the academy of the barricades made in the old eras to protect poor villages. Although, this was on a scale he'd never heard of. Fallen trees were stacked on top of each other, rising well over fifty or sixty feet high.

The barrier reached almost through canopy layer of the forest and the whole mess leaned on the remaining upright trees for support. Looking off to both sides, Shikamaru noted that the wall moved off out of sight in either direction. The genius was duly impressed. He couldn't have made a better barricade if he had a week and twenty builders to craft it. The question was, what the hell was a large scale barrier doing out in the middle of nowhere? And who the hell had managed to build it without any Leaf-nins noticing?

"What the hell is this doing here?" Neji asked as he landed next to the Nara boy, not realizing he was echoing the genius's thoughts.

"I don't know. You see anything behind it?" Shikamaru asked, his eyes tracing downwards to the ground where Kakashi was investigating the base of the wall alongside his little pug.

"Wait a moment," Neji said, then gritted his teeth as he activated his Bloodline. His eyes took on the eerie shine and appearance of the Byakugan as he squinted at the barrier. Almost immediately he muttered, "What in the hell…?"

"What is it?" Gai asked as he dropped onto a branch behind them. "What do you see?"

"Nothing," Neji replied, with a sharp tone of disbelief.

"Something wrong with your eyes?" Shikamaru asked, looked at the Hyuuga boy. "You have been using the-"

"No, I mean there's nothing behind it," The other chuunin interrupted. "Beyond the barrier, there's nothing."

"What do you mean?" Gai asked, frowning slightly.

"I mean ther- …Look, you'll just have to see it for yourself," Neji said as he closed his Byakugan and stepped off the branch. The other two shinobi watched for several moments as the pale boy rebounded back and forth between two trees as he made his way to the ground, before they followed after him.

They caught up to Neji as he stood panting near Kakashi at the shadowy base of the barrier. Shikamaru looked over at the Copy-ninja and watched as the man leaned down to run his hand along the bark of one the fallen trees.

"Shikamaru-kun, do you notice anything odd about these trees?" The tall jounin asked without looking back at them.

"Aside from the fact that they're even here?" The genius drawled. Turning a little serious, the boy critically looked over the wall, letting his sharp mind analyze what his eyes were taking in. He suddenly jerked in shock and resisted the urge to smack himself at missing such an obvious feature. "This isn't man-made."

"No, it isn't. At least, it doesn't look like it," Kakashi agreed as he stood upright. He turned and walked towards them, his visible eye crinkled in thought.

"How do you guys know? What were you looking for?" Neji asked, still panting as he dug out his canteen. He nearly choked at Shikamaru's response.

"They're all uprooted," The Nara boy said as he looked over the barrier. "Even the trees at the top of the barrier have been pulled up. None of them were chopped down and not one of them has the bark stripped. Strange, though. Some of them seemed to be burned in spots, though the scorch marks don't look like a forest fire or anything a human would do."

Neji let his eyes trace the odd wall. Shikamaru was right. He could see roots sticking out all over the place. Every tree was intact, barring the ones cracked apart by the weight of the others. Each tree had its bark, roots, branches, and even their leaves still in place. And some of them did have odd scorches on their surface, though there seemed to be no pattern or reason to the burns. It almost looked like a giant had hand woven a massive basket together, but had used trees instead of grass. The trees certainly _looked_ like they'd been pulled up by a giant anyhow. The dirt hadn't even fallen off the roots yet.

Wait…Dirt?

Neji moved over to the wall and jammed his entire hand into a mass of roots and earth at the base of one of the trees. He tore a large clump free and brought it to his face, then took a big whiff.

"This is fresh. Hey, Kakashi-sensei! This dirt is fresh!" The Hyuuga boy called to the jounin, who had wandered off a ways. Kakashi walked up to him and peered down at the clump of soil.

"Hmm, I thought as much. It smells fresh alright," The copy-nin muttered thoughtfully.

"There's still grubs and earthworms in it too," Neji said as he broke the clump up and looked at the little bugs and squirmers moving around on his palm.

"And all the leaves are green. The broken wood is still damp and the sap still runs," Kakashi continued as he drew a kunai and made a notch in the bark of one of the trees. Neji let the dirt in his hand fall to the ground as he watched the sap ooze from the wound.

"If it's so fresh, then it probably has something to do with that creepy stunt Naruto pulled," Shikamaru said as he walked up next to them.

Kakashi nodded and said, "There's no other reason for something so unusual to be out here. As soon as Pakkun gets… Ah, speak of the devil…Err, dog. There he is now."

The other three ninjas looked up as the small nin-dog jumped over a thick clump of bushes and trotted up to the Copy-ninja.

"I found a place to get through. It's this way," The pug said, before it turned and ran back the way it came. The shinobi followed after immediately, not wanting to lose track of the little summon.

Pakkun led them to a small, washed out gully near the crest of a hill. The tree barrier went straight across the hole, but not into it. It wasn't large, being only about ten feet across and twelve feet deep, but it was long and went well under the wall. Kakashi didn't hesitate and dropped down into the eroded gully. He landed in the small creek that ran down the center and quickly walked upstream and under the barricade. Three consecutive splashes sounded behind him as the others followed. On the other side of the barrier, the copy-nin focused a little chakra and did a super-jump up and out of the wash, alongside Pakkun.

As he landed, his jaw dropped behind his mask.

"Rival, why did you…stop…Good Kami," Gai trailed off as he jumped up behind Kakashi and got a good look.

"What're you gawking…at…Huh. Well, that explains where the trees came from," Shikamaru said as he stared at the odd sight in front of them. As Neji landed beside him, the chuunin said, "I assume this is what you meant by nothing?"

"…Yes, though I didn't expect it to be this bad," The Hyuuga said as he looked across what used to be a large forest.

They stood at the edge of a massive, circular plain. It was roughly three miles at its widest, by the best estimates of the jounins, and was totally barren. No trees, grass, or any animal life could be found anywhere. Pakkun leapt up and ran towards the center of the expanse, with the four shinobi following. At top speed, they crossed the distance in about five minutes. Immediately, the pug started sniffing around. Kakashi kneeled to look at the ground, then stood and slowly turned in a circle to eye their surroundings.

They were near Cavern Country, with the border so close they could see the large foothills off in the distance over the tree-line. Inside the plain they could see large layers of old volcanic rock that rose out of the earth and made fairly smooth sheets of stone here and there. They stood on the largest, which was a good hundred feet long or so. It appeared to be worn smooth by erosion, but upon closer inspection, perhaps something else was the culprit. Underneath their feet, there were three large circles composed of strange runes and symbols that had been burned several inches into the face of the rock. The largest of them was about twelve feet across. A slick, shiny material coated the stone for almost ten meters in every direction. It took Kakashi a moment to realize that it was glass, presumably formed by sand and dirt that had been melted by the same intense heat that had seared the symbols into the rock.

Moving outwards in a circle, the earth had been blasted away, exposing more of the stone outcrops to the bright sun. The same force that had peeled the soil from the face of the earth was apparently responsible for tearing every tree within a mile and a half radius out of the ground and hurling them away, where they clumped up and formed the odd barrier. The wall of trees framed the edge of the plain they stood in, with a large layer of dirt packed on top of this side of the mess. Well, that explained where all the topsoil went. This plain was exactly in the same direction they'd seen the red glow emanate from. Logically then, Naruto and the Kyuubi must have caused all this, though they could see no sign of either.

What the hell had the boy done to create this field? Start a localized typhoon or a mile wide tornado?

"Move out, with each of you to a compass direction. Search for any sign of Naruto. Footprints, clothing, kunai, anything," Kakashi ordered as he pulled a scroll out of his jacket and unrolled it. "Pakkun, start hunting along the wall for his scent. His trail coming in must've been blasted away, but he had to leave somehow. And all of you, keep your guard up. I doubt we're the only ones who noticed the chakra wave and other forces may be here already."

"What're you going to do?" Shikamaru asked as he curiously eyed the scroll the copy-nin was now inking seals onto.

"I'm going to make a copy of these symbols to bring back to the Hokage. Then I'll destroy the originals," Kakashi replied as he continued to make the complicated series of seals to form a scribing scroll.

"Destroy them? Why?" Neji asked as he looked over at the jounin. He almost immediately answered his own question as he said, "Ah…We don't want the Sound duplicating whatever happened here."

"Exactly. Them or anyone else. Could you imagine the damage this would cause if performed in the center of a village?" Kakashi rhetorically asked, as he laid the scroll on the ground to have a better writing surface. "Orochimaru is already obsessed enough with seals and jutsu as it is. If he discovered that these existed, he'd hunt Naruto to the ends of the Earth. Regardless of whether or not the Kyuubi has corrupted him, I don't want the Sound getting to him before we do. He's attracted enough attention to himself as it is."

Neji flinched and Shikamaru frowned at the mention of the fox-demon. Neither had really been able to process the disturbing information yet, so it was still an unpleasant subject for them. Shikamaru kept puzzling over all the little details he'd missed over the years and Neji was dealing with an odd mixture of annoyance and relief. Annoyance that Naruto had used the fox's power to beat him at the exams and relief that the blonde boy had the willpower to keep the demon from killing him. Neji felt a cold shiver of fear crawl up his spine every time he thought of that match.

He'd arrogantly taunted and threatened a demon. He had to wonder why he was still alive.

The only thing that had saved his life was likely the same bull-headed stubbornness he'd criticized Naruto about so much. If anyone had the balls to stand up to a demon's influence, it was Uzumaki Naruto. Whether it was bravery or stupidity, he neither knew nor cared. If the situation had been reversed, with Neji as the bearer of the Kyuubi and Naruto the arrogant prodigy, then the Hyuuga would have let the demon kill the other boy in a heartbeat. That Naruto hadn't finished him off or tried to kill him could be taken either as a sign of great character or as a conceited insult. Since Naruto wouldn't know a calculated insult if it slapped him across the face, Neji doubted it was the latter. To be honest, out of all the members of their crowd, Naruto was probably the best choice to bear the Kyuubi. He'd use the demon (as opposed to Shikamaru), but not _mis_use it (as opposed to Sasuke.)

Just the thought of that arrogant Uchiha traitor having such a powerful weapon at his disposal left a nasty taste in Neji's mouth.

"Alright, get going," Kakashi's voice broke the Hyuuga out of his thoughts. Three shinobi and a dog nodded before they dashed off in various directions. Gai headed east, as the Sound would come from that direction if they sent ninjas to investigate. Neji headed west and Shikamaru to the north, which left Pakkun to wander off south. The Copy-ninja watched them go for a moment, before he went back to the task at hand.

A half hour later and he was just putting the finishing touches on his scroll. Kakashi looked it over critically as his skill with seals was far lower than any of the Sannin. Jiraiya had taught him a couple tricks whenever the older pervert had stopped by during the first week after Naruto had been injured, but the copy-nin still lacked the experience of the hermit. Still, it should work. Kakashi allowed the last of the ink to dry and glanced around. He could see the forms of the other three shinobi moving about here and there, off in the distance. None were paying him any mind. He took the opportunity to pull off both his mask and his forehead protector and wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. He had already taken off his flak jacket because of the unseasonable heat.

The sun was warm today and after traveling for two days in the cool shade of the forest it was an unpleasant change. It didn't seem to be just the sun, though, that was making this place hot. The very air of the dusty, barren plain seemed to boil and wave with some unnatural heat. It was likely a side-effect of whatever stunt Naruto had pulled here. At least the ink dried quick in this weather.

Kakashi ignored the sweat sticking his body suit to his back and pulled his mask back up, though he left his forehead protector on the ground. It was too hot to put that piece of metal back on his head and it was a good idea to have the Sharingan ready to be opened in case an enemy ninja sneaked up on him. Keeping his left eye closed, the Copy-ninja rolled the scroll up part of the way, so that only four feet was left exposed. There was a large, blank spot in the shape of a rectangle framed by seal script in the middle of the paper. He laid it in the center of the glass coated rune circles and started inking a faint line of seals outward from the scroll to the edge of the farthest circle. He carefully traced the entire outer ring of alien symbols, before he led a line back into the scroll opposite the first. Fortunately, these were just simple seals to define the boundary of the scroll, so it didn't take long. If all went well, a perfect copy of the rune circles should be recorded onto the scroll. With all the preparations complete, Kakashi gathered chakra into his hands, made a few seals, and slammed his hands into the center of the scroll palm first.

Nothing happened.

The Copy-ninja blinked his open eye and stared at the scroll under his hands. What the hell? He'd done it perfectly or at least good enough. Why wasn't it working? A slight tremor tickled the underside of his lowest hand.

A sound like screeching metal tore through the hazy air. Kakashi tried to jump back, but found his hands stuck to the scroll. He opened his left eye to see what was happening. He immediately closed it, feeling nauseous. Chakra was swirling in a sickening, dizzy pattern in the air all around him. He finally knew what the hell the heat waves were. It was left over chakra and though it was invisible to the naked eye, the Sharingan saw it as a dark, evil crimson that could have only come from one source.

Kyuubi.

Even as he tried to pull away from the scroll, the Kakashi could feel the heat growing worse around him. It seemed to bake his skin through his bodysuit and all the sweat on his body dried in moments. With a sense of horror, he noticed the symbols on the ground ignite and blood colored flames seemed to flow inwards towards him. The copy-nin chanced opening his Sharingan again and this time he closed it in fear. A massive sphere of the evil chakra was building around him and he couldn't do a blasted thing about it. The seals he had written suddenly burst into blue flames that rose several inches off the scroll. The ones on the ground ignited as well and began to rise. Slowly, the blue circle formed a dome around him that was composed of flaming blue kanji script. The fire from original red symbols began spiraling inwards towards his hands. The dome provided some protection from the heat of the chakra, but it was still overwhelming to his the senses. The Kyuubi's terror began to build up in him, feeding his panic and making him instinctively want to find a hole to hide in.

Sweet Kami, if this was how powerful the _traces_ of the Kyuubi were, how strong was the real thing?

Kakashi tried pulling on his hands again and found to his surprise that his right hand came free, though his left was still stuck to the scroll. Not hesitating, the copy-nin withdrew a kunai from his holster and swiped it at his left hand. If cutting his hand off would get him the _fuck_ out of here, then he'd gladly sacrifice it. In the demon induced panic, Kakashi didn't complete the strike properly and wound up slashing the back of his hand open just beneath the protective metal plate on his glove. The blood splattered across the scroll and the spiraling red flames.

Kakashi immediately wished he hadn't done that.

The blue dome collapsed and merged with the red runes on the ground. With a whirlwind of heat and raw energy, the mixture of red and blue fire spiraled straight into the back of Kakashi's left hand. The copy-nin was unable to hold back the scream of pure agony that forced its way out of him. He hadn't felt this kind of pain since that time Itachi used his torture gen-jutsu on him. No…This was worse. Worse than a hundred cattle brands searing into him. It felt like it was boiling right through his flesh and into his spirit. The mass of evil chakra pulsed once, then followed the path of the seals and swirled into his hand. For an instant, all was still as all heat from the plains disappeared, leaving only behind a bitter cold that contrasted sharply with the bright sunlight.

Then the ground exploded.

Kakashi went flying over twenty feet, slammed into the stone outcrop, and skidded another ten. For several long moments, he could only lie there with his hand on his chest, too pained to even move. Chips and splinters of rock rained down on him and the surrounding area. The hazy heat came back as the chakra moved away from the seals and into the air again. The jounin carefully lifted his left hand and slid it into his right armpit to protect it, before he opened his eyes. He closed the Sharingan when he noticed the nauseating swirls of chakra were back. Wincing, he slowly forced himself into a sitting position and glanced around with his normal eye. The dust was still settling across the rune circles. He noted that his scroll was completely destroyed, with only a few charred paper strips lying scattered about. Voices calling out to him made him look up, seeing Gai and Shikamaru approaching from different directions. He wondered for a moment where Neji and Pakkun were, before he held up his right hand to keep Gai from bowling him over.

"Rival! Are you alright! What was that horrid sound! And that explosion! Speak to me! Are you hurt! Are you-" The tai-jutsu master halted when Shikamaru put a hand on his shoulder to calm his frenzy.

"Kakashi-san, are you wounded?" The chuunin calmly asked, though the dark-haired boy's concern was evident.

"Yes, but I'll live," Kakashi replied in a deeper, raspier tone than normal. "Is the circle still intact?"

Shikamaru frowned, but glanced back anyways to check the blasted ground. Looking back at the copy-nin, he said, "The inner circle is mostly destroyed, but the others are still intact. You know what happened?"

"I tried to use a scroll jutsu that would and record the symbols so Jiraiya-sama and the Hokage could look at them. I guess I set something off instead," The jounin replied as he sighed and leaned forward a bit. He blinked a little as some blood and sweat ran past his open eye. He probably looked like shit.

"Well, whatever it did must have hurt like a bitch. You look like shit," The lazy Nara said, echoing the other man's thoughts. He critically eyed the jounin, who had nicks and cuts all over his face and a hunk of his mask missing at the chin. His silver hair was gray with dust and was matted to his head with sweat and blood. It didn't escape the genius's notice that the older man was protectively cradling his left hand.

"I _feel_ like shit," Kakashi muttered. He tried to get to his feet, only to slump back down. The copy-nin gave a weary sigh at his predicament.

"Let me help you, Rival," Gai spoke up, his worry for his friend almost overbearing. He stepped around behind the other jounin and grabbed him to help him up. Unfortunately, he chose to grab him under the armpits.

Gai jumped back like he'd been stabbed as Kakashi gave a hoarse bellow of pain from the accidental jostling of his left hand.

"Rival! Forgive me! I didn't know you were hurt there! I'm sorry! I'll punish myself, I swear! Five hun-No, a _thousand_ laps around Konoha! On my hands! With a boulder on my feet! I promise, just plea-"

"Gai? Shut up," Kakashi said in a raspy voice. The other man instantly fell silent. "Just come around and grab my hand. My _right_ hand."

The other jounin complied and carefully hauled the Copy-ninja to his feet. Gai fidgeted nervously for a few moments, wanting to help his friend, but reluctant to do anything for fear of hurting him.

"Gai, why don't you check on Neji? If he didn't come running like you two did, then something might be wrong," Kakashi said, taking pity on his odd friend's plight. The tai-jutsu expert hesitated for a moment before nodding and dashing off towards the western edge of the circle.

"Here, you might want this," Shikamaru said, holding out the Copy-ninja's flak jacket and forehead protector. Kakashi glanced at them and mentally cringed at the thought of putting either item on with his hand in such a painful condition. He carefully let his left hand hang free as he reached around into his side pouch for a roll of gauze.

"Would you mind wrapping my hand for me?" Kakashi asked as he held out the bandages. Shikamaru nodded, then took the roll and gestured for the jounin to hold his hand out. When the other man did, the chuunin almost dropped the gauze in shock.

"Holy hell!" Shikamaru cursed as he stared at the copy-nin's hand. "Kakashi-san, what happened!"

"What? I just…" Kakashi trailed off as he stared down at his hand. Well, shit…Now what the hell was this?

His arm was bare up to the elbow, as the glove and sleeve had apparently been blasted off. His skin had a purple-gray look to it, indicating a serious burn. What really caught his attention, though, was the back of his hand. There was something on it that had him _very_ worried.

After all, how many people had nine red lines forming a spiral sealed into the back of their hand?

* * *

"What happened?"

"Damned if I know. The seals told us the brat left Konoha about four days ago. We tracked him to northwestern Fire Country, then he disappeared at the same time the Kyuubi's power was unleashed. Itachi-san was out in the area and he checked it out. Said he didn't find anything and if he couldn't scrounge anything up, then I doubt any of us can."

"This is disturbing news. The seals don't work now? Even with the vessel's blood?"

"Nope, not even a trace. It's like the kid has up and disappeared off the face of the continent."

"Perhaps he did. We were warned that the seals have limited range."

"Some sort of powerful teleport jutsu? You think the kid could pull something like that off?"

"No. The Kyuubi on the other hand…"

"Ah, I get your point. If the fox is involved, who knows what'll happen?"

"Indeed. If the Kyuubi is guiding or teaching the vessel in some way, then we must be very careful and gather as much information on the two of them as soon as possible."

"What should we do?"

"Send the word out. All members of our order are to keep a look out for the vessel or anyone fitting his description. Start in Fire Country and work your way outwards. Also, have Itachi-kun go and find out if Orochimaru has captured the vessel or not. If he has…"

"We'll butcher his entire pitiful country and let Itachi-san cut whatever body he's possessed into pieces. That little snake will learn _not_ to screw with our plans."

"Yes, it was folly enough to leave us. If he actively interferes with our ambition, then we will retaliate and erase any trace of him."

"No kidding. I don't care what body he's found, there's no way he can beat Itachi-san. Even if he has possessed his brother."

"My thoughts exactly. Uchiha Sasuke will always remain inferior to Uchiha Itachi, now more so than ever if Orochimaru has used one of those ridiculous Curse Seals on him."

"Dumb brat. Actually falling for one of the snake's games. And here I thought all Uchiha were supposed to be ingenious."

"It seems not. Or perhaps he simply falls short compared to Itachi-kun. No matter. Orochimaru is only worth the trouble of dealing with if he has actually taken the Kyuubi-vessel. Otherwise, we'll leave him to his little power games."

"Right. I'll let Itachi-san know. He and Kisame-san will probably head out immediately."

"And where are you planning on going?"

"Since I'm without a partner at the moment, I'll head to Wind Country in disguise. Might as well check on the other target while I'm away and I certainly shouldn't tempt fate by wandering into Earth or Lightning Country."

"No, we wouldn't want you to have to butcher a dozen of their hunter-nins trying to escape. Be careful near the One-Tail. Shukaku's vessel is very skilled and perceptive, especially for one who never sleeps. He's detected our agents before, though he hasn't learned of our order yet."

"Assuming I can even find the black-eyed runt. I swear that kid can disappear from the inside of a bathroom and stay gone for weeks. The Kazekage can't control him in the slightest, though he seems to have calmed down some recently."

"If he's gaining control over the demon, then that only makes our plans that much easier."

"Heh, right. I'll see if I can find either of the vessels while I'm there. It'll probably take me awhile. I'll send a message in a month or so."

"Alright, we'll call for you if we decide to attack Orochimaru."

"Yeah, definitely let me know if we're going after him. That's one fight I don't want to miss. Gotta test my new sword out somehow."

"Hmm, it would be enjoyable. I'll watch for your message in a month."

"I'm getting shivers thinking about killing some of those weaklings. Anyways, I'll see you later."

"Let's hope your venture is profitable, Tsurugi-kun."

* * *

"This is one pain in the ass mission," Shikamaru muttered as he leaned over Kakashi's hand to get a better look at it.

"Remind me to thank Naruto for the lovely tattoo," The jounin sighed as he stared at his burned limb. A thought occurred to him and he turned his hand upside down. Both he and the chuunin jolted when they saw another nine lined spiral on his palm. This one was a mirror image of the first, except it was a strange shade of blue, rather than red. It looked like the seal had been burned straight through the back of his hand.

Kakashi sighed again. This was not his day.

"What the hell is it?" Shikamaru asked, squinting at the odd marks.

"It probably has something to do with the Kyuubi, though I'm scared to even ask what," Kakashi said.

"Kyuubi? Why would it…Ah, nine lines for nine tails. And the spiral?" The genius asked.

"The spiral may be generic of Konoha shinobi, but I think it was the Kyuubi's symbol long before we began using it. At least, a nine-lined spiral is the demon's symbol," The copy-nin said as he brought his hand up to get a closer look. Wait, didn't he have a cut there?

Examining the red spiral showed that he did indeed have a very faint scar that neatly bisected the mark horizontally. It didn't really interfere with the seal's appearance and it would probably fade completely in time. The spiral, on the other hand, looked very permanent. Its lines were a deep crimson and edged very faintly in black. The only part that wasn't red was a single blue-white dot at the very center of the mark, from which the nine lines radiated out from. Though he had called it a tattoo, it certainly didn't look like one. Where a tattoo's colors often looked gaudy or unnatural on the skin, this seal's colors were perfectly balanced and it almost looked like it belonged there.

Turning his hand over, Kakashi got the same impression from the blue seal on his palm. From the outer edges working in, the spiral was a bright color that made him think of the tropical seas he'd seen far to the south. The inner half of the mark gradually darkened into a deep blue color that reminded him of cold mountain lakes. It was rather nice looking, though he really hadn't come out here to get a freaky seal of some demon burned onto his hand because its crazy vessel did some insane jutsu that no one knows a thing about.

Hmm, speaking of demons and their vessels, they still hadn't found any trace of Naruto.

"We need to keep searching. I'll bandage my hand up as best as I can. Can you make a drawing of the symbols?" Kakashi said as he scratched his chin with his good hand.

"Sure. I used to doodle at the academy whenever I felt like it," Shikamaru replied. He tossed the gauze roll back to the copy-nin, before he walked over to the circle of runes.

Kakashi grimaced and slowly began to unroll the bandages around his arm. He wished they had thought to bring a medic or at least some extra supplies along, but they'd been in such a rush to leave that they hadn't brought anything beyond the standard stuff in their jackets. Hell, they didn't even have any soldier pills to give to Neji. He'd be sure to avoid repeating that mistake in the future.

A sudden breeze made the Copy-ninja look up. Shikamaru had used a weak wind jutsu to blow the grit and debris off the ground seals. As Kakashi watched, the boy pulled a scroll out and did a few funny seals before unrolling it. The jounin's eyes widened as the scroll exploded in a puff of smoke and a large sheet of paper about fourteen feet long fluttered out of it. Shikamaru grabbed it and set it across the marks that had been seared into the rock. He pulled a piece of brown-colored paraffin from one of the scroll sleeves in his vest and knelt down to make a rubbing of the seals.

The lazy genius glanced up at Kakashi and grinned while saying, "Sure I could draw them, but why waste the effort when tracing is easier?"

The jounin shook his head, though his eye crinkled into a smile. Looking down at his hand, he turned a bit more serious as he continued to bind it up. He winced as he wrapped the cotton around his palm and the back of his hand. Hopefully Tsunade-sama could do something about the seals. At the very least, she should be able to heal the chakra burn. Kakashi finished binding his forearm with a small metal clip to hold it in place. Hmm, now how would he go about putting his jacket back on?

"Need a hand?" Shikamaru asked. The copy-nin glanced up and noted that the boy was already done copying the marks, with the scroll bound up in its normal form. The genius calmly slid it into his own flak jacket before he reached down to grab Kakashi's. "Here, hold your bad arm out first."

Shikamaru was surprisingly careful as he helped the jounin put his jacket on. Kakashi's arm wasn't bumped once. When he got it on, the genius boy grabbed the forehead protector off the round and rigged it up to make a sling which the jounin promptly hung around his neck. The copy-nin sighed in relief when he placed his wounded arm in it.

"Much better. So you're all done?" Kakashi asked

"Yep, got it all right here," Shikamaru replied as he patted the pocket with the scroll.

"Good. Stand back," The Copy-ninja said as he walked towards the seals. The Nara boy did so and watched curiously as the other ninja brought his right arm up and held his hand cocked in what looked like a tiger claw. For several long moments, nothing happened.

"Chidori!" Kakashi suddenly roared, scaring the living crap out of Shikamaru. A crack of energy sounded as the glowing blue chakra gathered around the man's hand. As soon as enough was gathered to complete the move, Kakashi slammed his hand into the middle of the circle of runes. The resulting explosion spread outwards and shattered the top foot of rock for several meters in every direction. The copy-nin himself disappeared in the cloud of dust that erupted from the ground.

Shikamaru waved the grit away from his face as Kakashi walked towards him out of the cloud. The genius grumbled, "How'd you manage that with only one hand and no seals?"

"Years of practice," The Copy-ninja replied, wiping his hand off on his jacket. "Though I won't be doing another one for a while."

"Why?" The chuunin asked with a puzzled frown.

"When I do it one handed, it's over twice as inefficient," Kakashi said as he looked back at the hole. The dust was starting to settle enough to get a good look at the mess he'd made. "Without the seals or a second hand on the wrist to stabilize it, the jutsu costs more chakra, is less concentrated, and spreads out rather than penetrating. I also can't maintain it for long. In this case, it was perfect for destroying the evidence, but in an actual fight it's almost worthless."

Shikamaru walked towards the spot where the runes had lain. The dust had settled enough to reveal a wide, shallow hole that had been blasted into the ground. The rune circles had been totally destroyed. There weren't even any large fragments of the markings.

"I see," The chuunin muttered. Glancing over at Kakashi, he continued, "We should probably go and check on Gai and Neji. The last I saw, Neji was working his way south, so he might've met up with your dog. I didn't find any traces to the north, though I'll be surprised if anyone finds anything at all with the ground torn up so badly."

"He had to leave somehow. Hopefully it was on foot," The copy-nin answered as they started walking to the south. A cool breeze hit the jounin's sweaty face, making him sigh in relief.

Wait. Cool breeze?

Kakashi snapped his Sharingan open and looked at the air about him. The dark chakra was gone, though there were still a few rapidly fading traces of it. The hazy effect had vanished and the air had grown noticeably cooler. Without a huge mass of heat rising up into the atmosphere, the northern winds from Cavern Country were starting to blow through the dusty plain. The Kyuubi's residual energy must've been linked to the seals. With them gone, there was no real evidence of what had taken place here.

"Interesting," The copy-nin thoughtfully said, closing his enhanced eye again.

"What is?" Shikamaru asked, jolting the man from his thoughts.

"Oh, nothing," Kakashi replied, shrugging the question off.

Fortunately, the chuunin was one to let things go, rather than making a temper tantrum about it. They started moving again, only to be nearly bowled over by Gai as he appeared out of nowhere and landed in front of them.

"Come with me. You two need to see this," The tai expert said, then raced off to the south. The two laid back shinobi glanced at each other and shrugged, before following.

Gai led them almost straight south, all the way to the tree barrier. As they approached, Kakashi took notice of a large, shadowy hole that had been made in the wall. They paused at the edge of it, until Gai carefully walked through and gestured for them to follow.

"Did you or Neji make this?" Shikamaru asked as he looked upwards. The tree wall was almost fifteen feet thick at this point, but the hole looked like it had been torn open with ease.

"No. That's one of the things that has me worried," Gai replied in a serious voice. He walked forward and followed a natural path between the trees. "And before you ask, that's not what I wanted to show you. It's up ahead."

They walked in silence for several minutes, until Gai pushed his way through a large clump of ferns and bushes. When Kakashi and Shikamaru followed the jounin, they stopped dead in their tracks.

Damn, that was a _lot_ of blood.

They stood at the edge of a small, natural clearing. It wasn't even as large as the one Shikamaru had fought those Sound genins in during the Forest of Death fiasco. Strewn all about the place were bodies. Well, bodies, body parts, some internal organs, and blood. _Lots_ of blood. The red liquid had been splattered across everything, from the grass to the trees. There was a large pile of corpses in the center of the clearing that seemed to have a spotlight on it, as a large beam of sunlight had broken through the canopy and was shining right on the mass. Flies buzzed about the mess, illuminated by the light. Shikamaru gagged and fought the urge to puke. He distracted himself by looking away from the pile. He noticed Neji and Pakkun poking around at the southern edge of the clearing, the two of them examining something on the ground.

Kakashi stepped forward and lightly kicked what was left of a man's head. As it rolled over, a bloodstained forehead protector came into view. It had a familiar symbol on it.

"So the Sound beat us here after all," The jounin said as he turned his attention to the central mass of bodies. He calmly walked towards it, ignoring the flies and the smell. Kneeling, the copy-nin grabbed a relatively clean twig and ran it through a large puddle of blood. "It's not totally dried. This was recent. Within the last six hours or so."

"So who killed them? Naruto?" Shikamaru asked as he stepped a little closer, despite himself. At least until he noticed that one of the twigs he was looking at was actually a severed finger. He had to turn away at that point.

Kakashi noticed something at the bottom of the puddle. Leaning closer, he carefully poked the stick through the semi-congealed red liquid and into the material. His open eye narrowed as he realized what it was.

"I'll be damned. It's-"

* * *

"…Sand," Kakashi said as he sat in front of the Hokage's desk. It was a day later and the jounin was giving his full debriefing to the Fifth. "There was sand in every puddle of blood. When I looked closer, I realized the bodies had been crushed by a massive amount of concentrated force. The evidence matches the abilities of only one ninja we know of."

"Gaara," Tsunade said as she frowned thoughtfully. Her mouth was obscured by her hands as she leaned on her desk. "I don't know whether to be worried or relieved."

"Relieved?" The copy-nin replied, sounding a bit incredulous. "That kid is a total psychopath. Who knows what he'll do to Naruto?"

"Probably look after him," The Godaime answered. When she noticed the jounin wasn't buying it, she continued, "When your Uchiha student turned traitor and I had to send those genins out after him, I requested some support from the Sand Village. Gaara's team was the one that came. When I asked the Kazekage about it later, he told me that the boy had insisted on coming as soon as he learned that Naruto was involved. I don't really understand why, but apparently the kid feels he owes Naruto a large debt. You said it was only the Sound that had been killed? You found no traces of any other shinobi?"

Kakashi nodded his head, staring at the Hokage with a strange look.

Tsunade continued, "Then Gaara came to find Naruto when he felt his chakra in the wave. If he killed a group of Sound-nins, it was likely in protection of the boy or because they were trying to get him to hand Naruto over. I can't say I'm happy with him being in the hands of someone so unstable, but at least we don't have to try and rescue him from Orochimaru or the Akatsuki. Gaara will likely watch over him until he feels his debt is paid."

"And if he goes nuts?" Kakashi dryly asked.

The Hokage snorted and said, "Then I expect Naruto will be able to handle himself. He's beaten Gaara once already and he's been training under a Sannin for the past year and a half. He's also learning skills from the Kyuubi, so he's a formidable opponent, to say the least. I doubt he'll fall to the sand-brat. Although, the Kyuubi reminds me…Did any of the Sound-nins have a copy of the seals Naruto used?"

"Yes, Neji found one scroll on them that was readable. The rest were trashed, so we burned them along with the bodies," Kakashi replied as he dug a bloodstained scroll out and passed it to Tsunade. The Hokage unrolled it and spread it on her desk.

"I see," She said after a minute of looking it over. "They must have drawn it by hand. It's not as accurate as Shikamaru's rubbing. Still, it would've been bad had it returned to Orochimaru. I see they managed to copy the inner circle. Jiraiya can use this to fill in the blanks spots on the other scroll."

"When does he return?" The copy-nin asked. "I wanted to ask him if I screwed up that scroll jutsu he showed me."

"The one that caused that seals to be burned into your hand?" Tsunade said as she looked up from the scroll. "I doubt it. It probably worked just fine and accidentally triggered something within the seals left behind. I'll have him look at the marks on your hand when he gets back. Though it looks like an odd, but stable seal, Ithink it's the same language as the other two I've seen."

"The other two?" Kakashi questioned as he looked at his heavily bandaged hand. Tsunade had carefully healed the burn (which had been third degree) that had spread up his arm, but hadn't been able to do anything about the spiral seals. His arm was in a normal sling and his forehead protector had returned to its usual place.

"The first seal was the one we had so much trouble breaking the day Naruto was brought in. The other one I encountered was on a heavily modified and advanced bunshin that Naruto used to distract us," Tsunade said. She drew a small brush and carefully sketched each seal in the margin of the scroll she was reading. "See the similarities between their design and the ones from the circles you encountered?"

Kakashi looked down at the paper when the Hokage pushed it across the desk to him. He frowned and nodded.

"I see what you mean. The lines aren't kanji or seal script or even any other language I know of, but they all look similar to each other. Do you have any idea where they come from?" The jounin asked as his eye traced the lines of the seal that had injured Naruto three weeks ago.

"No. Not even the Scroll of Forbidden Seals makes a mention of them," Tsunade said as she leaned back in her chair. "Naruto could have only learned them from the Kyuubi, though that doesn't explain how or why the Akatsuki was able to use one. I guess the seals have some link to demons, but beyond that I don't know."

"Hmm…Well, at least we know how to recognize their script," Kakashi muttered as he eyed the scroll.

"I suppose so," Tsunade shrugged. "Anyways, what else do you have to report?"

"Nothing much, beyond what I've already mentioned," The jounin answered as he leaned back from the desk. "With the Byakugan, Neji estimated that there were twelve Sound-nins killed there. Looked like three four-member teams. We found no traces of any other groups while we were there, so I'm assuming Gaara got them all. Pakkun smelled Naruto at the clearing, but he and Gaara disappeared from there without leaving any trail, so we weren't able to follow them. I'm assuming they were headed for Wind Country. We returned after we destroyed the corpses and we didn't encounter anything else on the way back."

"And how are Neji and Shikamaru taking the news?" Tsunade asked, referring to the chuunins being informed of the relationship between the Kyuubi and Naruto.

"Good and not good," Kakashi said as he scratched his masked chin with his good hand. "Shikamaru seems to be taking it well, though not much fazes him. I suspect he won't be sleeping well for a couple of nights, but aside from that I don't think he'll be much different."

"And the Hyuuga boy?" The Hokage prompted.

"Neji…Err, well he seems a bit pissed off," The Copy-ninja replied, looking a little sheepish. "I got the impression he isn't too happy that he tangled with a demon or its vessel. I honestly can't tell if he's mad at himself or at Naruto. I have no idea what he's planning on doing in the future."

"Hmm, odd but a less severe reaction than I feared," Tsunade said. She'd just have to make take measures in the future to avoid any bloodshed.

"Am I going to be punished, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi calmly asked.

"Aside from the fact that you'll have to face Naruto if you cost him two friends? No, you won't be punished. You were preparing your comrades for a potential threat and I find it reasonable under the circumstances," The Fifth replied. At the jounin's crestfallen look, she reassured him, "Don't worry, Hatake-san. Naruto's tougher than he looks and he's going to have to learn how to find true friends eventually. If they let a little thing like being a demon-vessel get in the way of their friendship, then they aren't worth it anyways. But I doubt it'll come to that. Shikamaru is very loyal, despite his lazy attitude, and Neji is a good kid when his pride isn't getting in the way. I doubt they'll abandon him. You did make sure they understand the serious penalties that come with breaking that law, right?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," The copy-nin answered confidently. "They understand how serious the Sandaime's rule is and they swore not to break it."

"Excellent. I think that right there is a good sign that not all the bridges have been burned between them," Tsunade said with a small smile on her face. "Was there anything else you needed to tell me?"

"Not that I can think of, Hokage-sama, but I'll let you know immediately if something I missed occurs to me," Kakashi replied.

"In that case, you're free to go. That arm of yours should be totally healed up in a week," Tsunade said as she rolled up the scroll on her desk. Kakashi nodded, before he stood to leave. The Hokage suddenly smacked her head and cursed. "Shit, I almost forgot. You're friends with the Yamanakas' girl, right?"

"Ino-san? I suppose you could call us that," Kakashi said as he eyed the Godaime suspiciously. Did this woman know every part of his life or something? "Why? What's wrong?"

"According to Sakura-kun, Ino-san had some sort of fit just as the Kyuubi's chakra wave started," Tsunade said. "She's suffered some unusual brain trauma as a result. The MRI results were strange, so I took a look for myself. Hundreds of her neural pathways were severed, though I don't know how or why. That caused many of the capillaries in her head to rupture and to fill her cranium with blood. Fortunately, the pressure was relieved out her sinuses and her ear canal, so she avoided permanent brain damage. Oddly, the neural pathways were already reconnecting themselves on their own. All I really did was speed up the process with a healing jutsu. She's stable now, though she's still unconscious. She's in the IC ward a few doors down from Naruto's old room if you want to visit her. I have to warn you though…I have _no_ idea what she'll be like when she wakes up. The brain is a mystery even to me. There may be severe changes in her personality, so be careful when you talk to her."

Kakashi's mind raced as he heard the news. He nodded at the Hokage and turned to leave, wanting to check on the girl. Tsunade's voice stopped him, in a creepy parody on the last time he'd been in here three days ago.

"Hatake-san, come back. There's something else I forgot to mention," The Fifth said, her voice tense. The copy-nin reluctantly moved back to his chair, hoping he wouldn't get chewed out about his habits again.

He seriously hoped she wasn't going to make him give up Icha Icha. Didn't these things come in twelve step programs?

"I had little chat with the Council earlier," Tsunade said as she gave the jounin a serious look. "There's something they had to say that you need to know."

"This is about Naruto, isn't it?" Kakashi said, as realization set in. He doubted the Council was interested in his perverted habits. The jounin sighed when Tsunade nodded.

Damn, it sucked when he was right.

* * *

"So, you're finally waking up huh?"

The first thing Ino noticed when she became aware of her surroundings (aside from the strange headache), was the familiar lazy voice of the Copy-ninja. She slowly opened her eyes and took in the sight of the hospital ceiling above her. She shifted her head to her left and looked at Kakashi's outline. The jounin was sitting in front of the window and though it was cloudy out, there was enough grayish light filtering in that the man's features were obscured in shadow.

"Hatake…? Tha' you?" Her voice came out dry and raspy. Her throat felt parched.

"Hang on," The figure moved a bit, though Ino couldn't really make him out. A large, standing lamp clicked on in the corner of the room and its yellow light made a pleasant contrast to the gray light from the window. The upper end of her bed suddenly rose with a mechanical whir, so the genin wound up reclining rather than laying. She blinked at the sudden sight of Kakashi's masked face right next to her. "Here you go."

Ino gratefully accepted the glass of water and drained it completely. The cold liquid helped to clear some of the fog from her head, but the strange feeling refused to leave. Kakashi's concern made her antsy, so she hastened to reassure him.

"I'm feeling okay, Hatake. My head is feeling…weird, but aside from that I'm fine," The blonde said. Kakashi stared at her in surprise, though she couldn't really tell why. Really, a jounin should know to hide his emotions better.

"Oookay," The Copy-ninja replied. His eye crinkled a bit, then he shrugged it off. "Anyways, you almost gave Sakura-chan a heart attack. She says she understands now how Tsunade-sama got her fear of blood."

"…Huh? What're you…Oh, yeah," Ino mumbled as she stared down at the empty glass in her hands. All the memories started coming back. Of the weird clone, her argument with Sakura, and the bizarre visions she'd had followed by that chakra terror. "What happened?"

"Well, you see, you had some sort of fit when Naruto did some weird ritual or something out in the middle of nowhere," Kakashi began, as he still carefully watched the girl. Why on earth was he checking her out to see if she was nuts? He could be a little more subtle about it. "Tsunade-sama says your neural pathways were all severed and reconnected, which caused your brain itself to bleed. All that leaked out your nose, ear, and eye. That was actually a good thing, since it kept you alive, even if it did give Sakura-chan a panic attack. The Hokage herself checked you out after the MRI results came back odd."

"MRI?" The genin repeated, not having any clue what the man was talking about.

"Ah, I had no idea what it was either, so I asked Shizune-san about it before I left the Tower," The copy-nin said while sheepishly scratching the back of his head. "Turns out it's a medical machine that people used hundreds of years ago. When Tsunade-sama first came here and became Hokage, she found a few documents describing it and other machines in the old records. She sent out a survey team to one of the ruins of the old cities and they managed to find one of the units in a destroyed hospital. It was broken, but they were able to reverse engineer it. We've been using it for a little over a year now. We only have the one, but that's more than any other Hidden Village can brag. It's handy. It uses magnetic waves to make pictures of your entire body, though it's mostly used for the brain. Oh yeah… Sakura-chan said she'd give your earrings and those rings from your dress back whenever you woke up. Wearing metal in one of those machines is a bad thing, it seems."

"Uh, okay," Ino replied, most of the jargon going over her head. It was kind of obvious Kakashi didn't know much more about it than she did, but she let that slide. "So what else has happened?"

"Well, you've been out for almost four days so far. I've been hanging around here for only a few hours. I just got back from a mission and I haven't had much sleep, so I was just about to take a nap," Kakashi answered.

"What kind of idiot do you take me for, Hatake?" The blonde scathingly snapped. "You were going to read that damn perverted book of yours."

"Actually, you're right. I was going to read Icha Icha," The jounin said with his eye narrowed. His entire demeanor suddenly changed and he cheerfully said, "Anyways, you'll be happy to know we managed to catch Naruto. He pulled off a creepy jutsu that managed to make him stronger, which is why that wave hit everybody, but we were able to bring him back anyways. He's a little beat up, but he's just down the hall and perfectly safe."

"Why the hell are you lying to me, Hatake?" Ino snarled as her hand clenched the glass hard enough to crack it. "If that's your idea of a fucking joke, then you must've been raised in a goddamn barn, you asshole."

"I was lying," Kakashi said seriously, his demeanor completely changing again. "So tell me, how did you know that?"

"It was obvious, jackass," The genin replied, her anger not dissipating in the slightest. "You weren't hiding it at all. You're a pretty crappy jounin, you know."

"But what did I do that tipped you off? Where did I screw up" The copy-nin continued, leaning forward a little bit as he stared at the girl.

"Easy, you…You were acting…You didn't…" Ino trailed off as she realized that she had no idea how she knew the man had been lying.

"You know, not many people can tell a jounin is lying. Especially a genin," Kakashi continued, looking thoughtfully at her. "So, how'd you know I was planning on reading Icha Icha? Why did you reassure me when you first woke up, considering I didn't ask you a question?"

"I…I don't know," The girl mumbled, growing a little panicky. Had she woken up? Was this another of her weird dreams?

"Calm down."

"I am calm, dammit!" Ino yelled at Kakashi. Her anger faded at the man's shocked look. "What? What is it now?"

"Ino-san, I didn't say that out loud," The copy-nin said with a wide eyed look. The girl felt an icy chill of shock ripple up her spine. She felt a sense of pride radiate from Kakashi, just before he said, "Congrats. It looks like you have yourself a Bloodline Limit."

"That explains the headache," Ino muttered as she rubbed her temples. She set the cracked glass on the table and gave the jounin a sharp look. "So how do I learn how to control it? Picking up people's emotions and occasional thoughts isn't very handy."

"Ah, there's the sharp tongued girl I'm so fond of," Kakashi replied. He ignored the genin's growl of anger as he said, "Tsunade-sama was worried that the rewiring your brain went through would alter your personality. I'm glad to see she was wrong."

"I told you I feel fine, except for this headache. Which, I might add, had better go away eventually," The blonde grumbled. A sudden wave of tiredness made her slump backwards on the bed. "What the hell?"

"Hmm, looks like your Limit eats up chakra to use and you don't have much to spare right now," Kakashi noted as he stood up and walked towards a set of cabinets on the far side of the room. He rummaged around for a few moments, then came back with a small pill that he passed to Ino. The girl noticed that his left arm was bandaged and in a sling as the man walked back to his chair. "Eat up. It's a soldier pill. I know you don't want to rely on them, but you need the boost in chakra since you can't control your Bloodline yet."

The genin glared at the pill for a moment, then popped it in her mouth and chewed it down. A surge in energy revitalized her and she was able to sit upright again.

"Okay, so what's really going on," Ino asked, her mind clearing as her headache faded somewhat. "What's up with Naruto and why is your arm busted up?"

Kakashi sighed and said, "Naruto escaped Konoha five days ago using a series of techniques that no one in our village has ever heard of. Even in the old records and the Forbidden Scroll, there's no mention of anything like those jutsu. Three days ago, his escape was discovered, though by then it was too late and he performed an unknown ritual in the northwestern woods of Fire Country. That was the cause of the bizarre chakra wave everyone felt. Myself and three others were dispatched to find him and learn what he did. It took us two days to track him down before we were finally able to find the place where he performed the ritual."

"…Why are you telling me this like it's a mission briefing?" The genin questioned, her eyes narrowing. She _felt_ something shift from the Copy-ninja and she found herself unable to sense what he was thinking.

"The place was a wasteland," Kakashi continued, ignoring the girl's question. "The land was stripped clean of trees and most of its topsoil in a circle about three miles wide. We found many strange seals burned into solid rock at the very center of the field. There was a rather odd incident that resulted in my arm being injured, but I won't bore you with the details. After searching the entire circle, we found a pile of Sound-nin bodies that had been crushed into pulp. There was evidence that Gaara of the Sand killed them and either helped Naruto to escape or abducted him."

"Why are you telling me this?" Ino asked, a thread of fear coiling through her at the mention of Gaara.

"We didn't run into anything else and I was able to return and give a full debriefing to the Hokage. She in turn told me about your status. She also repeated a plan that the Council is putting into action," Kakashi continued, again ignoring the genin's question.

"Why are you telling me this!" Ino yelled, the surrealism of the situation getting to her. "What the hell is wrong Hatake? Why are you acting so weird?"

Kakashi's head lowered and his eye closed. He gave a tired sigh and refocused his attention on the genin.

"Naruto has been declared a B Class missing-nin. The ANBU Commander has also placed orders that he be apprehended on sight and killed if he resists in any way," The jounin stated in a monotone voice.

Ino gasped in shock. She tried to speak for several moments, but could only move her mouth with no words coming out. She finally managed to choke out, "_Why_? He's only a genin, for Kami's sake! Why the hell would they make him such a high ranked criminal!"

Kakashi shrugged and said, "Well, he's been a Sannin's apprentice for almost two years. He's also learned an A Rank battle jutsu and has stolen a jutsu from the Forbidden Scroll. That makes him a far worse threat than any normal genin."

"What rank is Sasuke?" Ino demanded, her question seemingly coming out of left field. At the jounin's confused stare, she continued, "I know you're lying, Hatake, or at least you're hiding the real reason. What class missing-nin is Sasuke? And tell the truth. I'll know if you're lying anyways."

The Copy-ninja hesitated, then said, "C Class, with orders to capture alive if at all possible."

"So why the hell is the Dead-Last a worse criminal than the Uchiha prodigy?" The genin continued, her sharp blue-gray eyes boring into the jounin's. For an instant, he could have sworn they changed color. "I can guess why they want Sasuke back. They're desperate for a breed-able Sharingan to come back to Konoha. But why are they using any excuse they can grab to kill Naruto off?"

"When you're right, you're right, Ino-san," Kakashi said as his eye drooped worse than usual. "The Council would forgive almost anything Sasuke has done as a Sound-nin, as long as it meant they get their Uchiha trump card back. The C Rank is in place only because Tsunade interfered and had his Class raised from D. She also altered the orders so that Leaf-nins can kill him if necessary. The Commander wanted orders for him to be left alive at all costs, even if he attacked our shinobi."

"With an idiot like that in charge, it's no wonder ANBU takes such high casualties," Ino dryly said, not knowing she was repeated the Hokage's words from several days earlier. At the jounin's raised eyebrow, she continued, "Come on! Even the genins hear about it! ANBU has the highest mortality rate in Konoha, rather than the least. You'd think it would be the opposite, considering they're supposed to be so skilled. Something has to be wrong with that. Everyone from the Rookie 9 wants to be an Elite Jounin or at least a Special Jounin, like you and those weird examiners. No one wants to get killed less than a year after promotion. I know you agree with me, so don't even deny it."

Behind his mask, Kakashi smirked. This girl had potential. He was glad he had agreed to Tsunade's proposal, even if it was 'suggested' by the Council.

"You're exactly correct, Ino-san," The copy-nin said as he leaned back in his chair. "The Commander is more than a little foolish. Fortunately, Tsunade-sama is the exact opposite. He wanted Naruto declared S Class and killed on sight, but she was able to force it down to its current Rank. Though it seems bad, she's given Naruto some freedom to be able to come back without getting killed immediately. It could've been much worse."

"_S CLASS_!" Ino shrieked, her regained calm shredded like confetti. "What the _hell_ would posses that man to declare a _genin_ an S Class criminal!"

"Funny you should say 'possess,'" Kakashi muttered. He paused when he noticed the girl's questioning look. He'd made his decision on the way to the hospital. If Ino was going to be a part of the Council's plan, then she had the right to know why. He just hoped Tsunade would forgive him again. At least he had an excuse this time, though the Sannin would probably see right through it. "Ino-san, focus your attention on me and try to see what I'm showing you, okay? Concentrate on my thoughts as hard as you can. Let them flow into you. My vision becomes your vision. My hearing becomes your hearing. Concentrate."

Ino frowned at the jounin's words, but obeyed. She focused hard on the copy-nin, who had closed his eye in concentration. At first nothing happened. She was just staring like a fool at the jounin. Then, she suddenly wasn't seeing him anymore. She was seeing a bizarre double image of normal vision and the flows of chakra through objects and people. With one half of her vision, she saw a source of chakra that was so intense it looked like a red sun. She saw a yellow-haired, bleeding man standing atop a massive frog that had an open wound across its left eye. The man stared defiantly at the bright chakra and performed a jutsu that summoned a hazy specter behind him that only her chakra vision could see. A hideous, tattooed hand flowed out from the man's chest and reached out towards… Towards…

Kami-sama…

That _thing_ was the Kyuubi no Kitsune. A dark and powerful fox demon, so large it exceeded even Gamabunta in size (whom she now recognized.) Nine tails that crackled and burned with power swirled overhead, ready to lash out at anything that came too close. The fox apparently didn't consider the hand a threat and instead swept a paw at a group of shinobi perched in the trees between a couple flattened buildings, killing them all before they had the chance to even scream. It started to move deeper into the shattered village, but was halted suddenly. The hand had grabbed the demon's chest and pulled a monstrous, swirling ball of energy out from the beast. The fox froze and its body suddenly crumbled into dust. As Ino watched, she saw Gamabunta rush the man and the huge mass of energy across the burning village to the Hokage's Tower. The vision faded and a new one appeared in its place.

Ino saw the blonde man and the Sandaime standing over an altar in a room that was covered in seals. As she watched, the man performed a series of high level jutsu and used the hideous hand to press the red mass into a bundle lying on top of the altar. With a blaze of fire and kanji script, the energy flowed into it and the hand retracted itself back into his chest. As she watched, the man said something inaudible to the Third, before he collapsed to the ground. Somehow, Ino knew he was dead, even as the vision moved forward and an unfamiliar, gloved hand reached out to check the man's pulse. The double vision was suddenly clouded and distorted as it stared at the man's handsome face. A shrill sound broke the silence and the same gloved hand reached up to swipe the tears away. Ino recognized the unfamiliar sound, though she'd only heard it a few times in her life.

A baby crying.

The dual-vision turned and slowly moved to where the Sandaime was leaning over the altar, making soothing sounds to the bundle. Slowly, the she moved around the Hokage and got her first good look at what lay on the pedestal. A growing horror rose in the girl as the gloved hand reach forward and gently tugged the blankets aside. A baby, splattered in ink and so young that its navel was still bleeding. A baby with a blonde tuft of hair and three black slashes on each cheek. A baby with a jet black spiral surrounding its navel and a complex seal encasing both. A baby who calmed down as her gloved hands gently lifted it up and rocked it to settle it down. A baby who opened its squinty eyes to stare up at her.

Electric-blue eyes.

Ino was suddenly back in herself and gagging as bile rose in her throat. Kakashi immediately helped her up and into the bathroom where she emptied her stomach (which really had nothing in it) into the toilet. After several minutes of dry heaving and swirling some cheap hospital mouthwash, the genin found herself back in her bed, trying to erase the image from her mind.

"Well, you handled it better than I did," Kakashi said with a cheerful tone.

"You mean you puked all over Sandaime's shoes or something?" Ino said in a raspy tone, grateful for the distraction.

"Err, well no. But I did get drunk off my ass for a week straight afterwards," The copy-nin said with a shrug.

"Because of what they did to that baby?" The genin asked, her stomach turning again, though she held it in.

"That and that blonde man was the Yondaime…My sensei," Kakashi replied with a downcast look in his eye.

"That baby…That was Naruto, wasn't it?" Ino said as more of statement than a question. At the jounin's weary nod, she continued, "And the Kyuubi…It wasn't killed, was it?"

"No, the fox is very much alive. At least as long as Naruto is," The copy-nin answered.

"So this whole time, Naruto's had a demon trapped inside him," Ino stated, as she looked down at the linen on her bed. She suddenly chuckled, drawing a surprised look from Kakashi. "And just a few days ago me and Sakura were wondering why everyone acted so weird around him. They hate him, don't they? All the adults. And us kids must have picked up on it too. Like a bunch of sheep. Fools following fools…Fuck! I can't believe we were so stupid!"

Kakashi stared in surprised as Ino's eyes glowed an eerie teal color for several seconds as she gritted her teeth in rage. As the color faded back to her natural blue-gray, the genin gave him a fierce look.

"When did he learn? About the Kyuubi? Did he always know or did he spend his entire childhood wondering why people hated him?" The blonde girl demanded.

The copy-nin's shoulders slumped and he replied in a sad voice, "Sandaime-sama told me Naruto learned he was a demon-vessel the night he graduated from the academy. The Third had made a law that prohibited anyone from speaking about the Kyuubi incident. A traitor schoolteacher told Naruto the truth when he tried to kill the boy and Iruka-san."

"The night he graduated?" Ino repeated with an incredulous look on her face. "That means… _Twelve_ _years_! He spent the first twelve years of his life being a hated outcast and no one even had the decency to tell him _why_?"

"It's a feeble excuse, but there is a law in place. The Sandaime dealt harshly with _anyone_ who spoke or did anything harmful to Naruto. He even sent a high ranking ANBU to the Wind Country's shinobi prison for talking about it in public," Kakashi said. Okay, so Sarutobi had really sent the guy to Wind Prison for punching a six-year old Naruto out in the middle of the market sector, but it had also been for screaming demon at the top of his lungs. Same difference.

He sighed at the look in the genin's eyes and continued, "And even if I had been allowed, I had a hard time even looking at him for years. I never blamed Naruto for the incident, but he was still a reminder of the night my sensei died. Not exactly fair, but I am human after all."

Ino sagged backwards and rested her head against the pillow. Her anger drained away at the honest remorse in the jounin's voice. And it really wasn't his fault. Even if it was, the damage had already been done. Nothing she said or did could change that. Now she was wondering how she could have missed all the weird signs. Granted, she wasn't very close to Naruto, but she still should have seen something odd. Shit, no wonder he was always trying to get attention by any means necessary. It was almost pathological.

Actually, it probably _was_ pathological, considering how Naruto had grown up.

"So what happens now?" Ino dryly asked as she looked over at Kakashi. "He's gone, the Council wants him dead, and I have a Bloodline I can't control."

The jounin was silent for several long minutes. He appeared to be seriously considering something over, so Ino allowed him time to think. Her own mind wandered a bit, carefully feeling out the variety of different buzzing sounds that seemed to be coming from all over the place. The girl almost jumped when the jounin's eye focused on her with a serious expression.

"From now on, you're my official apprentice. It's already been decided and Okayed by the Hokage."

Okay, she was not expecting him to say _that_.

"Err, excuse me?" Ino asked with a bewildered look on her face.

"I've already cleared it with Asuma-san. With Shikamaru-kun and Chouji-kun already chuunin, there isn't much point in having you on his team. He said you're too high maintenance for him anyways. So, I guess I should say something official-like. Ahem… Welcome to Team 7, Ino-san. Err, though it's only the two of us," Kakashi said with a slight eye smile.

"…Why?" The genin asked, sensing that the man wasn't telling her something. "I mean, I'm grateful, but there's a big difference between looking over my training on the weekends and having me as your personal student. Why the sudden change?"

Kakashi's eye darkened as he said, "First official lesson of Team 7, Ino-san. Read underneath the underneath. Your hint is 'the Council.' And try not to use your Bloodline."

Ino broke eye contact with the man to avoid focusing her thoughts on his. The Council? Why the hell would they give a shit if Kakashi trained her? Accelerated training was great and all, but she didn't want to have anything to do with people who acted so hypocritically. With the way they handled the situations with Sasuke and Naruto, there was no way she'd trust them to…

Oh shit. This had to be a fucking joke.

"Naruto," Ino stated firmly as she looked up at the jounin. She didn't have to 'feel' Kakashi's mind to know she was right. "Let me guess: all the other members of the Rookie 9 and Gai's team are receiving heightened training as well."

The copy-nin nodded.

"They want his friends to be strong enough to kill him when he gets back. They're setting up an ambush for whenever he returns to Konoha and they're trying to use the only people that have ever cared about him to do the dirty deed. Am I right?" Ino said in a low, dangerous voice.

"Got it in one shot," Kakashi said, leaning back in his chair. His tone had a hard edge to it as he said, "The ANBU Commander and the Council have forced the Hokage into a bad position. One of the things they bargained for was, like you said, accelerated training for each of you from your crowd. The idea of course, being that if the Kyuubi has taken over Naruto or he's become too dangerous, he may let his guard down near one of you long enough to be assassinated. I find it disgusting to try to turn comrades against comrades. If they make a habit of such a practice, then we'll eventually have a repeat of the Hidden Mist massacre."

"I won't kill him, you know. Not because some old fool tells me to," Ino stated firmly when the jounin's dialogue dropped off. "I won't murder a friend, even if I don't know him very well."

"I hate to say it, Ino-san, but we may not have a choice. If the Kyuubi is in control, then Naruto will have to be put down. I think the Council is going overboard with trying to hunt him down and kill him without learning anything of the situation, but we still need to be prepared just in case. I might have to do the deed myself," The Copy-ninja stated with a tired tone to his voice.

The girl's face fell as she stared down at her lap. Damn. This sucks.

"Hey, don't look so downtrodden," Kakashi said with a cheer that was only slightly forced. "Don't think about what might happen with Naruto for now. Just take this as an opportunity to grow, just like you wanted. And cheer up a bit. You have a chance to catch up to Sakura-chan and the rest now."

Ino looked up at him for a long moment, before a smile broke across her face.

"You're right. I'll show everyone who's the best!" The genin declared with a confident half-grin. Then her face turned a little sheepish as she said, "Err, we are going to work on controlling my Bloodline, right?"

"First thing I was planning on training you on," Kakashi stated with a firm nod. "We still have to figure out all the things it can do."

"Good," Ino cheerfully said. Then her expression turned dark as she glared at the jounin. "Because if I catch you thinking any kinky thoughts about me, I'll invent a castration jutsu just for you."

"I wouldn't dream of it," The Copy-ninja said with solemn voice that was only offset by the nervous sweat-drop on the side of his head.

"Cool, where do we start?" The blonde girl said with a cheerful smile.

""I've requested six months leave for a training trip. The Hokage wasn't very happy to have me gone for so long, but I've got permission as long as we do the occasional mission out there," Kakashi replied. "We leave as soon as you feel well enough to go."

"Great!" Ino exclaimed. Suddenly, an odd look crossed her face. "Err, Hatake…Did anyone think to tell Iruka-sensei the news?"

Kakashi stared at her with a blank look for several moments, before he managed one phrase.

"Oh shit."

* * *

"What the _hell_ do you mean, 'he's gone'!" Iruka roared as he repeatedly slammed the ANBU's face into the wall. After three days of hard running from Wind Country, he was _not_ in the mood for excuses upon finding Naruto's hospital room empty and a few ANBU milling about investigating the place. He was currently in the middle of demonstrating exactly why his students avoided his temper.

With a loud 'crack,' the ANBU's snake mask split in half and Iruka let the man slump to the ground, totally unconscious. He turned towards the other ANBU, who immediately shrank back at the killer intent he was radiating. Really, a schoolteacher had no business being so scary.

"Who was guarding him?" Iruka hissed as an aura of malevolent shadows seemed to crawl around him.

As one, all the ANBU pointed at the man in the cat mask, who was still having trouble sitting down. The elite shinobi gulped as the chuunin stalked towards him.

"Oh shit."

* * *

"Son of a bitch! I _hate_ clones!"

Kakashi idly watched Ino work herself up in a rage as she fought four of his kage bunshins. He had to admit, it probably wasn't very fair of him, but the high levels of training were showing great improvement in his student already. He stretched a bit and relaxed a little more against the boulder he was leaning on. Hmm, maybe he should encourage her a little? It would be the right thing to do, as her teacher and all.

"You're doing great, Ino-chan! Pretty soon you might be able to beat one of them!"

"Fuck off, Hatake!"

The jounin chuckled at his student's foul remark. In the four months that they'd been a team, he'd gotten used to her violent mood swings. At least she didn't keep it all bottled inside like Sakura and Sasuke did. And she tended to think things through more than Naruto had. She made a pretty good teammate, over all. She still had a ways to go, but she was getting there. They got along pretty well, too.

Kakashi quickly disguised a guffaw as a sneeze when one of his clones performed a leg sweep that sent Ino tumbling ass over ankles.

"I heard that, you rotten bastard! Fight me yourself, you chicken shit, instead of letting your clones do all the dirty work!"

"We already talked about that, Ino-chan! You're doing fine, just make sure to dodge next time!"

"Useless, piece of crap sensei!"

"That hurts, Ino-chan!"

"BITE ME!"

Okay, so usually they got along. When Ino got frustrated, cranky was an understatement. It made dealing with her a bit of a trial, though she usually apologized for the bruises to his ego and scalp later. They worked too well together to seriously fight over anything. It was getting to the point were they could read each other's moves and attitude without too much difficulty. She had read his intentions about this training session easily enough, though her earlier statement was only partially true. Kakashi was reluctant to fight her personally, though it wasn't out of cowardice or as an insult to her skills. It was to improve her overall as a shinobi.

Ino's Bloodline Limit was very powerful in combat, though not very impressive in appearance. When she concentrated on an opponent, she could read their surface thoughts and anticipate their moves. This put her on even footing with shinobi twice as strong as her. In terms of anticipating an enemy's intentions, her Limit exceeded even Kakashi's Sharingan. With her skills growing rapidly, Ino was a tricky opponent for even the copy-nin to beat, even if he outclassed her completely. She still hadn't beaten him even without the Sharingan, but she'd managed to land some pretty serious blows here and there. Unfortunately, she was getting way too used to his thinking patterns, so he had her duel with clones instead. Without a real brain to think with, a kage bunshin proved to be a much harder opponent than the real thing for Ino. It forced her to build her tai-jutsu and nin-jutsu rapidly, which she was grateful for, even if she got her ass kicked every time. It was painfully obvious she still had much room for improvement.

Which was why they were out here in the middle of western Fire Country, a day's travel from any village. This close to Wind County, the trees were spread further apart and the area was much drier than what they were used to in Konoha. The hills gently rolled out here and there were plenty of wide open fields to practice in. Enough shade to relax in and enough room to work. Perfect for a martial artist. Kakashi's boulder was in the shade of a few small evergreen trees and he was currently enjoying the lazy summer afternoon, even if Ino wasn't.

A slight shudder in the chakra within his left hand reminded the Copy-ninja of the odd seal he'd been wearing for several months. Thanks to Tsunade's medical expertise, his left arm had healed up to perfect fighting condition in a week. The seal remained, however. Neither the Hokage nor Jiraiya-sama could remove either spiral mark, no matter how much chakra they poured into it. Hell, Jiraiya couldn't even _alter_ it or make a blocking seal around it. Whatever the hell it was, it was on a whole different level than the seal used by the Akatsuki on Naruto.

On the plus side, it wasn't harmful to Kakashi in any real way. Occasionally, he felt ripples in the chakra of his left hand that would make it hard to maintain a jutsu, but aside from that, neither spiral mark had done anything to him. At least it wasn't another blasted Curse Seal. The only truly harmful thing that had happened was an incident when Kakashi had gone off by himself for awhile to practice alone. He had powered up a Chidori in his left hand and rushed at the side of a rock outcrop. Part of the way there, a ripple passed through the seals and his Chidori had blazed out of control. The jutsu grew three times larger in seconds and threatened to burn his entire hand off. Kakashi had little choice but to continue his path and slam his hand into the cliff-side.

The hole it had made was much larger than usual, though not as deep. He had no idea why his chakra had burned out of control like that and he wasn't exactly sure he wanted to know. From then on two things changed. One, he swore not to use his best jutsu with his left hand until he could figure out what the hell was going on. Actually, he hadn't even done a Chidori period since then. And two, Ino never let him train alone again. The copy-nin wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Ino had just grumbled something about her sensei getting himself killed before he made himself useful.

Another scathing curse ripped through the air as the genin fell prey to a double team the clones had pulled on her. Kakashi sighed a bit. Really, where had that girl learned such language? She could peel steel off a frying pan with that sharp tongue of hers. The jounin immediately forced himself to avoid following that mental image into a more perverted line of thinking. Ino's threat from the hospital room was occasionally reminded with a couple of mock swipes of a kunai whenever he got lax in his alternative fantasies. Oh well. At least she hadn't tried to take Icha Icha from him. That would have resulted in battle, no two ways about it.

The copy-nin sighed as he watched his student go flying through the air again.

Despite her seemingly poor progress, Ino really was improving a great deal. She was constantly learning new tricks to her Bloodline Limit, her chakra reserves and control were getting higher, and her skill in nin-jutsu and tai-jutsu were growing very well. The hard work also showed in her appearance, as she'd lost the rail thin look she'd previously had and she'd put on a decent amount of (needed) weight in muscle. She was still slender (though nothing short of steroids or a kin-jutsu would change that), but she'd gotten a lean, defined look that was very attractive. Kakashi had noticed the way some of the Rookie 9 and other shinobi her age (and not) looked at her the few times they'd been back to Konoha. She blew off any offers though, saying she had more important things to worry about. The jounin didn't pry, but he was curious about who she wanted to show off her good looks to.

Ino's hair and dress were a different style now, though she still wore all those bandages. Her hair was a short, simple cut that ended at her neckline. In one of their sparring matches, Kakashi had demonstrated how long hair could be a disadvantage when he'd grabbed his student by her long, blond ponytail and flung her twenty feet across the training grounds. The jounin had gotten kneed in the crotch for his stunt, but he'd managed to drive the point home. unless you're _really_ strong, don't let things hang off you that an opponent can grab onto. Ino had shown up the next day with her new hairstyle (which she claimed was a variant of the way she wore her hair in the academy) and acted like nothing was different.

Her dress hadn't changed much. All she'd really done was adjusted the skirt and made sure there were no loose flaps that could be grabbed. The look was simple, yet (not surprisingly) she pulled it off and made it look stunning. Combined with her new physique and a greater confidence in her abilities, it was no wonder half the genins and chuunins in Konoha stared at her when she walked by. Kakashi had even noticed Sakura watching the blonde girl oddly, though he had a feeling it was due to envy at the girl's sudden growth. He lecherously grinned at the thought that it might be something else, however unlikely that may be.

'Bad Kakashi! No naughty thoughts for you!' A voice that sounded like Rin's and Obito's combined said in his head. He couldn't restrain the grin at the thought of what his fallen teammates would do to him if they caught him being so perverted. His face fell a little when he reminded himself that he'd never hear their voices again in this lifetime. Beyond maybe, but not while he was here on this earth.

A scream of fury tore through the jounin's melancholy thoughts. Glancing up, Kakashi noticed Ino try her Katon technique to give herself some breathing room. The clones had been half expecting such a move and they all leapt over the fire plume. The genin displayed her improvement as she chocked the move briefly and swiveled her head upwards and let out an even larger burst of fire. Even caught off guard, most of the clones still had the reflexes to move out the way. One wasn't so lucky and it disappeared in a cloud of ninja smoke as the chakra enhanced flames engulfed it.

"Good job, Ino-chan!"

Panting, Ino gave the copy-nin a brief thumbs-up before she rushed the clones again. Kakashi smiled proudly behind his mask. He was impressed, both with her improvement and his ability to teach. After the original Team 7 turned out to be a disaster due largely to his own actions, his confidence in his teaching prowess had been shaken badly, even if he didn't show it. Training Ino one on one had proven his fears wrong. He'd screwed up royal with his first students, but he was doing something right by teaching the blonde girl. Perhaps he just made a better teacher for a single student then he did for a team. Oh well, it wasn't like he could test that anytime soon. The other teams were doing their own heightened training and the only other students he was interested in anyways would be Lee or Neji. And the day Gai gave his prized students to his rival was the day the tai master admitted that Shikamaru's attitude was a good idea. Well, for now Kakashi would just focus on turning Ino into a deadly kunoichi.

The jounin winced as one his clones landed a punch to the girl's midriff that dropped the genin like a sack of potatoes. It was too bad she couldn't use her illusions on the clones like she could on the real thing. She'd be doing much better. At least she wouldn't be on the defensive as much.

As far as her gen-jutsu, both Kakashi and Ino had been mildly disappointed to learn that she wasn't exceptionally talented in that area. That's not to say that she couldn't create powerful illusions, it's just that her talent seemed to lie in nin-jutsu. It took the genin a great deal more work and effort to learn a gen-jutsu than it did for her to learn any other skill. The ones she did learn were impressive though. Like she'd originally suspected, when Ino combined her Bloodline with a gen-jutsu, it was hell on earth to try to escape. The last time she and Kakashi had sparred, he'd been forced to briefly unveil the Sharingan to escape an endless maze illusion she'd trapped him in. Against a normal opponent, it was absolutely devastating. She still had to work hard to pull off the enhanced illusion though. Using her Bloodline at such high levels burned through a large amount of her reserves. On top of that, Ino still hadn't fully gotten the hang of the technique yet, so using her Blood Limit on such an offensive scale was still beyond her in active combat.

But damn, when she perfected that illusion technique, she'd be a force to be reckoned with. Kakashi sometimes wondered if even his Sharingan could break an illusion powerful enough to trap him inside his own mind. He even wondered if she would ever be able to perform illusions on the scale of Itachi's Tsukuyomi when she mastered it. He had mentioned such a thing once to the girl and allowed her to 'see' his memories of the event, but she had to admit that the rogue Uchiha's gen-jutsu was leagues ahead of her. She had carefully taken note of its effects, however, and Kakashi had a feeling he'd just given her a goal to work towards.

Hopefully she wouldn't want to test it on him.

The copy-nin thoughtfully watched as Ino rolled aside to avoid a downward axe-kick from one of his clones. The girl struggled to her feet and prepared another jutsu. She was determined, he had to give her that. If she could use her Limit enhanced gen-jutsu on these things, she would have a great advantage in the fight. Still, an illusion was only an illusion. Ino hadn't learned any really dangerous nin-jutsu techniques to supplement her ability yet. She could trap an opponent in as many mazes as she wanted, but if she couldn't finish the enemy off then what good was it? The only gen-jutsu he knew of that actually harmed an opponent was that thrice-damned Tsukuyomi, which was still far beyond her. What the girl needed was a fast and powerful technique that could finish her opponent quickly before they broke free of her illusions.

The jounin sat bolt upright. Could she learn…? Maybe… It might be limited, but she could pull it off. She'd need a hell of lot of stamina training, but it might be a good jutsu in her hands.

Ino glanced up curiously as all of the kage bunshins disappeared in a puff of chakra smoke.

"What's up, Hatake? I wasn't doing that badly, was I?" The genin asked as she rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

"Ino-chan, come over here. There's a jutsu I want to show you."

* * *

Time moves funny, you know? Some people say it's all relative. If you went to heaven for an hour and came back, it would probably feel like you were only there for a minute. But if you put your hand on a hot frying pan for a minute, you'd swear afterwards it had been an hour. And if someone you love is in trouble and you have no idea where they are or even if they're alive, every second feels like an eternity, but you'd still be surprised at how fast time moves by overall.

That was the impression Tsunade had as she sat down at her desk on the first day of May, exactly one year after Naruto disappeared. It wasn't late or anything, being only about ten in the morning, but even the few hours she'd been awake had felt like years. It was like eagerly waiting for a visiting family member to show up and watching the clock crawl by. If anyone was suspicious about her odd attitude, they hid it well. The Hokage distracted herself from her worry that one of the ANBU would kill her little brother by focusing on the paperwork on her desk.

Unbidden, thoughts of the previous year slowly worked her way into her thoughts now that she wasn't focusing on Naruto.

After the Council started up their scheme, the four teams of the Rookie 9 plus Gai had started training in earnest, though the only non-jounins that knew the full truth were Ino, Shikamaru, and Neji. Tsunade had hidden the truth from Sakura, even as she redoubled the girl's training. Each team had grown tremendously. Team 8 was doing well, as Kurenai had finally gotten Hinata a little more confident and Kiba a little less. They weren't a spectacular team, but they had yet to fail a mission and were very dependable. Team 10 was doing alright. Shikamaru had taken an interest in exercising his already formidable brain and Chouji was taking his training more seriously. Unfortunately, the team felt incomplete minus a fourth member and none of the members were gung-ho about high levels of effort. Still, they were doing okay.

Gai's team was the spectacular one. Lee's tai-jutsu was only surpassed by his mentor/guardian. Neji had tripled the intensity of his training after the failed mission to find Naruto and was now only surpassed in the Hyuuga family style by Hiashi and a handful of the branch members. Tenten was nothing to sneeze at either, as she'd started learning a wider variety of skills after her failure to defeat Temari in the chuunin exams. Despite Lee still being a genin, the team refused to handle any missions lower than B Rank. They had rarely failed any assignment they were handed, no matter how difficult it was. They put the fear of Gai…err, God into the Sound whenever they went outside Fire Country. And Team 7…

Team 7 was incredible. There was no other way to say it.

Despite having only two members, the team's reputation had grown tremendous in the six months it had been on active duty. After taking Ino on as his official student, Kakashi had requested a solid half year to train her and get her up to speed, since she was lagging so far behind her peers. Tsunade had reluctantly agreed, seeing the copy-nin's logic, but still not wanting to lose one of her most skilled shinobi for half six months when they were hurting so badly for experienced Leaf-nins. The investment had paid off though and when they'd returned from the long training trip, both shinobi had grown in power and skill. Kakashi had improved from having a challenging sparring partner and Ino… Well, she was just plain impressive. Her Bloodline Limit was a perfect compliment to Kakashi's, allowing her to catch the few things that his Sharingan missed. Her ability to sense lies from even experienced jounin and ANBU level ninja was invaluable on spying missions. Her hellishly powerful illusions made interrogation or assassinations a snap.

Several other jounins had asked Kakashi to borrow her on tricky missions, though the copy-nin only agreed if he thought it would be good experience for his student. Even Ibiki occasionally asked for the genin's assistance on particularly tricky 'interrogations.' The girl had looked disturbingly pleased after coming back from one of those sessions. Kakashi had later confided in Tsunade that Ino was trying to develop a gen-jutsu that could completely incapacitate an opponent through pain or some other unpleasant experience.

The Godaime didn't know whether to be pleased or worried by that piece of information.

Team 7 had quickly proven that D, C, and even most B Rank missions were a waste of their talent. At Kakashi's request (and Ino's pleading) they regularly took A Rank missions. Tsunade was reluctant to allow a genin to go on such dangerous missions, but they had proven themselves capable of handling it. They rarely failed a mission and it was usually due to outside interference when they did. Hell, they rarely got _injured_. Their tag-teaming was deadly to anyone they came across. Rumor had it that only the stupidest or most arrogant (or both) Sound-nins tried to face the two of them in combat. Few survived afterwards. Tsunade was quite pleased with their results and the number of enemy ninjas they took out. Team 7 was a major asset for Konoha and one they sorely needed during these turbulent times.

In the months following Orochimaru's declaration, much of what Kakashi predicted to Sakura and Ino had come to pass. Sound-nins attacked Leaf-nins everywhere outside of Fire Country. It seemed Tsunade's old teammate had an open door policy for his nation. Missing-nins from every country (including Konoha, though they were rare) were joining up under the Snake Sannin. Rumor had it he was even hiring mercenaries and bandits to use as cannon fodder against Konoha. Though most of the Sound's forces were weak in comparison to Leaf-nins, they still managed to rack up casualties through sheer numbers.

Often, the actual Sound ninjas would use jutsu to turn the riffraff into berserker units to distract Leaf shinobi while they assassinated from a distance. Konoha's active forces had been on the rise and had reached about 65 percent their original number of ninjas, but in five months Orochimaru had managed to cut that level down to almost 50 percent. Tsunade was half expecting an invasion any day and was making plans to have all teams recalled (including Team 7) when the casualty rate dropped.

Encounters with the Sound started growing rarer and not even Jiraiya (who was in and out of Konoha all the time these days scrounging for information) could find the cause.

Within three months, Leaf-nins were having conflicts with Sound agents only about one of every four missions they went on. What's more, most of those encounters were against the riffraff. Fights with actual fully trained Sound-nins were only about one in every five encounters with Orochimaru's forces. Tsunade had no idea what was causing the decline. Orochimaru certainly wouldn't call off such a successful campaign so early and the Sand hadn't reported anything unusual in terms of their kills. Even Gaara (who had reappeared after a two and a half month absence) hadn't been killing more Sound-nins than usual. The few enemies they managed to capture alive thought nothing at all was wrong. Either Orochimaru was unaware of the slack or he wasn't telling his ninjas all that he knew. Knowing her teammate, Tsunade figured it was the latter. Well, she wasn't one to look a gift horse and all that. The decline in fighting had given the Leaf an amount of breathing room, for which the Fifth was thankful.

Tsunade occasionally wondered (usually after half a bottle of sake) if Naruto had anything to do with this new trend. It amused her a bit and was a way of reassuring herself through fantasy that the boy was still their ally no matter what he'd done with the Kyuubi. Her analytical mind said, 'No,' however. There had been absolutely **zero** sightings of Naruto since he'd disappeared. Hell, there weren't even sightings of people who vaguely resembled him. The Akatsuki showed more blips on their radar than a fourt…_fif_teen year old boy did. Their only lead, Gaara, had proven a dead end. The Kazekage had told her that the possessed boy had only shrugged whenever he was asked about it. Understandably, there wasn't a soul in the Sand willing to press the issue with the unstable demon-vessel. If Naruto was behind this Sound's recession, then he was doing a damn good job of hiding himself, which Tsunade doubted was the case. Not that she contested his ability, but Naruto was Naruto and subtle wasn't one of his fortes. And neither was the Kyuubi known for it either.

Tsunade set a scroll down and leaned back in her chair. She sighed as she stared at the door. Any minute, Naruto could walk right in. She was so worried about him. This was almost as bad as Dan and Nawaki all over again. Any minute he could-

"Baa-chan, why are you staring at the door?"

Of course, leave it to Naruto to come in through the window when she was expecting him to come in through the door.

Tsunade tried to turn in her chair, but suddenly found she couldn't. Great, he must have used a jutsu on her. And she hadn't even sensed him approach. What a lovely day.

"Don't get up on my account. Here is this easier?" Slowly, Naruto walked into the Hokage's line of sight. Tsunade's eyes widened as she got her first look at the boy. Naruto…Hadn't changed at all. His form was identical to the day he'd first left on his training trip with Jiraiya two and a half years ago.

What the hell?

"You look surprised. Don't worry. It's just an illusion. Kind of like you," Naruto said. He set a large, lumpy bag on the table in front of her. A feeling of dread wormed its way into Tsunade's gut. She really didn't want to know what was in that thing. And she didn't want to know what the boy really looked like.

"Hey, wanna see something cool?" Naruto said with one hand cupped around his mouth like it was some big secret. "Here, I'll show you."

Tsunade would have screamed if she could have. The boy _changed_ though he looked the same physically. Staring into his blue eyes, she had the insane feeling of something…red and black behind them. Something old and evil. Something that terrified her.

"Is this easier?"

The bag opened and blood spilled out from it and across her desk, soaking all the mission reports. Naruto reached a hand into it and pulled something out. He set it on the desk in front of her.

"Or is this easier?"

Orochimaru's severed head stared at her with a frozen look of horror. A white, feathery wing ripped out of Naruto's back and spread itself in the air.

"Or perhaps this is?"

Jiraiya's head was set next to the Snake's and the pervert's face had a quirky grin on it. A black, leathery wing tore out of the other side of the boy's back.

"Or is this the easiest?"

Uchiha Sasuke's head was set in between the first two. Naruto's hand warped into _something_ and crushed the boy's skull into pulpy matter. A single Sharingan eyeball floated in the bloody puddle towards Tsunade. The flesh on Naruto's body ripped off, exposing a pink-red skeleton with the two mismatched wings growing out of it. The boy's face remained intact and his bright blue eyes stared at her with every emotion known to man playing through them.

"So tell me, Tsunade-sama…Is it easy?"

The Fifth tried to respond, tried to jerk away, tried to _do_ anything, but she could only watch as the Tower was broke up around them and swept away by a violent gale of wind. She still couldn't move as she was forced to listen while the people of Konoha screamed as they were massacred by _things._

"Jeez, Tsunade-sama, I would think you'd recognize one of your own nightmares. And they call you a Sannin…"

Confusion moved through her as she stared at the twisted boy's face. He grinned and said-

* * *

"Tsunade-sama!"

The Fifth Hokage of the Leaf jerked upright from her desk, a mission report stuck to the side of her face. She whirled on the hand touching her shoulder and almost struck the person it belonged to. Like every time this happened, she managed to stop herself just before it landed.

Shizune didn't even blink at the action, far too used to it and far too trusting in her mentor to give a reaction.

"Heehee… You have something stuck to your face, Tsunade-sama," The younger medic giggled as she reached out to peel the paper off the Hokage's cheek. Her humor fell at the horrified look in Tsunade's eyes. "Bad dream?"

"I…Yes. A very bad dream. Thank the Kami…" The Fifth replied, knowing she couldn't fool her protective student. Well that was just about the most terrifying dream she'd ever had. If Naruto had really turned out like that, then she would have died from shock alone.

"Cheer up a bit, okay? It was just a dream. You wouldn't want to scare Naruto-kun more than he deserves when he gets back, would you?" Shizune said as she straightened out some of the scattered files on the Fifth's desk. When she was done, the medic gave her mentor's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "What would you like for lunch, Tsunade-sama?"

"…You're really too good to me, you know that?" Tsunade replied as she watched her apprentice. The younger medic blushed a little and shrugged it off.

"Your face is all sweaty. Why don't you go to the restroom and wash it off? Some cold water will help you wake up as well," Shizune said as she turned and walked to the door. She paused just before she left, seeming to mull over something to say. After a moment, she glanced back with a smile and said, "You may not believe it, Tsunade-sama, but you're worth being good to."

Tsunade stared at the door long after her student left, mulling over the young woman's words. She finally shook it off and got up to visit the washroom. Shizune was right. The cold water shocked all the weariness right out of her and helped break up some of the leftover images from her dream. The Fifth shuddered at the memory of the vile creature from her nightmare. Kami, she'd be glad when this day was over. She pulled a mission report from her pocket (which she was sure Shizune had slipped into there at some point) and mulled over it as she left the bathroom. She'd fallen asleep as she was reading her paperwork, so she was still far from caught up with it.

Stepping back into her office, Tsunade didn't look up from her report as she moved towards her desk.

"Son of a bitch. So _that's_ how that blasted jutsu works."

The Godaime dropped her paper as she jerked her head up and stared at her desk. Someone, whom she didn't recognize at all, was sitting at her desk and pouring over an open scroll. Tsunade's eyes almost bugged out when she recognized _which_ scroll the person was reading and which skill he was talking about.

The Scroll of Forbidden Seals. The Shiki Fuujin Technique.

Holy. Shit.

Tsunade dropped into a fighting stance, though she didn't know why she bothered. The ninja in front of her didn't even look up as he traced his finger along the kanji script of the old paper in front of him.

He did, however, give her a distracted wave as he continued to read.

"Heya, Baa-chan."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**General:** There it is, chapter 5. Hope everyone likes it. I tried to balance dialogue with action (didn't do a very good job) and make the paragraphs a little shorter. I'm surprised the editing went so fast on this one. Oh well. Hope it pleases the masses. Let me know what you think!

Uhg, as for the delay… Sorry about it being a day late (NOT an April Fool's joke, **JohnnyG**!) I spent Thurs. and Fri. helping a geologist friend set up for a large convention in town. To anyone who has no idea what that means…ROCKS. Lots of heavy ROCKS that had to be moved across town and hauled all over the place. I somehow finished the last three pages Thurs. night and couldn't even remember what I wrote the next day. Too tired Fri to do a proper editing, so I put it off till Sat. Oh yeah, people might notice the quality will swing between certain areas. The explanation is that I have insomnia and sleep like crap (who the hell doesn't nowadays?) and I sometimes write when I'm literally half-asleep. I try to clean it up in the editing, but I still miss a lot of errors. Just for general information in case anyone wonders why. Anyways, full excuses done.

Something came up in the reviews, so I'm going to address it here. A couple people have asked if they could use original ideas from 'Foxhound' in their story. I get the feeling it could become a pretty bad problem, so I'm going to close the office on it now to avoid any issues. No one has my permission to take my story ideas and use them in their own creation. I don't go for plagiarism. Despite the fact that every author on FFnet is technically in violation of copyrights, the unique ideas they come up with shouldn't be ripped off. And no excuses on coming up with it by 'coincidence.' If it's a big deal and it was an honest to god coincidence, email me and I'll consider it and discuss it with you. Don't bother asking in the reviews, as I'm ignoring any requests from that end from now on. The ONLY exception is **Silent.Storm**, because that author both seemed honest and because I already gave him/her permission through email. Anyone else is plagiarizing. Yeah, I know it's hypocritical considering the site we're on, but that's the way it's going to be. And it's not _that_ hard to come with fresh ideas, is it?

Major question for anyone who wants to answer: what sort of calendar does the Naruto worlds use? I know they use normal months and days, but what year system is it? Like 2902 AD or 678 PC (Post-Cataclysm) or 4656 RTA or whatever. Anybody who knows, please drop a line in your review. It's not a big deal, as I can just make it up if it's never mentioned, but I just want to make sure so I don't trip over any factoids or anything. Thanks in advance to whomever.

Is anyone else disappointed in the way the series is going? Good lord, it's turning into a typical anime series. I swear, it feels like Kishimoto painted himself into a corner and is using every cheap device in the book to advance the plot. Like the three years deal (Cough-Dragonball!-Cough) and the whole mess at the training grounds with the bells. The explosive bitch beating Gaara because her arm can make semtex even after it's been crushed into a pulp and pulling another Dragonball move by threatening to destroy the entire Sand Village in one blow. Then the fight with Kankuro and the big-tailed freak…Come ooooon! The only one who chases Gaara is Kankuro and the guy he fights just so _happens_ to have designed all his puppets! WTF? What in the _hell_ are the odds of that happening? And then the whole "EEEK! My tea cup has broken!" Dun-Dun-Duuuuuunnnnnn! OMEN! Uhg. I'm not saying the series is _bad_, but compared to the first 27 volumes, this is just disappointing. Like getting a Big Mac when you ordered a t-bone steak. I just hope Kishimoto manages to recapture that awesome feel he had in spades in part one. Sigh. Alright, I'm finished. Sorry to anyone who bothered reading that. Just had to get that out (been building since Chap. 246.) Rant done.

And I can't think of anything else, except…Uh, does anyone know if they're _really_ going to boot all the Naruto fics of this site? If anyone has seen a news article about it, please email me the link (I won't bite, promise.)

Oh yeah, in honor of April Fool's I've reposted Chap.1 with some Omakes and a couple light edits. They're quick, if kinda gross. I'll post some to other chapters whenever I get around to it.

**Jutsu: **Nothing big this time. No, Tsunade did _not_ undergo the Crucible at the end of Chap. 5. It was just a really bad dream brought on by stress. Or something.

**Sharingan Madness:** This is to clarify from Chapter 4, as a lot of people have commented on it. The Sharingan records so much data that it vastly overwhelms a normal human brain. Even limited use takes in far more information than the brain can handle. Limited use _can_ give the brain time to dump the excess data, weakening the effects of the madness (i.e. Kakashi isn't a psycho because he restrains his use of the Sharingan.) Extended use, however, can and will make the Sharingan user go insane, possibly permanently. The most common _symptom_ of this madness is extreme obsessive behavior, but it is no way limited to just that. Being obsessive is bad (like Tsunade is with Dan and Nawaki.) Being obsessive _and_ insane is _really _bad (like Itachi killing his entire clan…Or was that really a bad thing?) Anyways, use the Sharingan too much and you go nuts (at least in 'Foxhound.')

**Ino's Bloodline:** Will be given a name and fully explained sometime in the next two chapters.

**Naruto's Ritual:** Will be fully explained in a future chapter.

**Kakashi's Seals:** Fully explained in the next few chapters (probably Chap. 10) Though you can guess if you want, haha.

**Scribing Scroll** (C Rank) A recording jutsu made in the form of a scroll. Nin-jutsu. Two seals.

Nothing big or fancy. Just the scroll jutsu Kakashi tried to use. The Rank comes only from the difficulty in successfully creating a Scribing Scroll without it blowing up in the user's face or something. Not exactly common, but easy enough to learn if one has practiced seal usage. About six feet of complex seals are written into the scroll and a space about 8" by 13" is left blank in the first two feet of scroll. The scroll is laid in the center of whatever text or inscription that's to be copied and a circle of simple boundary seals encases the lot of them. Two seals later and a perfect, miniaturized copy is written into the blank space and can be enlarged or recopied later with ease. Err, unless you tried to copy demon seals. That'd be _very_ bad as the two seal types are generally incompatible, like two different computer OS programs overlapping each other (like half of Mac's OS being overwritten by Windows. _Big_ compatibility problem there.) The scroll will work, just not in any manner anticipated.

**Scroll Sheet** (D Rank) A simple jutsu to enlarge a scroll's size. Nin-jutsu. Four seals.

The jutsu Shikamaru used to enlarge his scroll's size. The size the scroll can be enlarged to is directly linked to to the chakra control of the user and the quality of the paper the scroll is made out of. The enlarged paper can be written, drawn, or painted on and will keep the text or picture in a miniaturized form when it is shrunken. It can be re-enlarged later at any time.

**Reviews:** Damn! Chap 4 got a _lot_ of reviews. Over 100! Cool, thanks everyone. Unfortunately, that means I'll have to limit who I reply to, but to anyone I miss, thanks for reviewing. I do read _all_ of my reviews, so if you said something, I'm pretty sure I saw it (though I may have forgotten immediately since I'm so blasted scatterbrained at times.)

(Reviews removed)

Thanks to ALL reviewers. I appreciate the time you all take to respond. Let me know what you think of Chap. 5.

**Next Chapter:** Chap. 5 posted April 2. Ugh, I'm facing a couple more delays associated with my geologist friend this week. Expect Chapter 6 out on Saturday, April 9 (though it could be out a day early or late.) 4/09/05 for digital freaks.


	6. It's called evil, kid

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: Kakashi leads a team to investigate the source of the chakra wave. They don't find Naruto, but they do find a set of strange seals that Kakashi accidentally sets of resulting in two odd seals being burned into his left hand. They find evidence of Gaara's presence and report their findings to the Hokage. Kakashi takes Ino on as his personal student and takes her on a training mission to learn how to use her Bloodline. The next year on May 1, Tsunade has a strange nightmare and finds an odd character in her office.

**Chap 6 – "Wow! How're you doing that?" "It's called Evil, kid."**

"Who the hell are you?" Tsunade demanded as she stared at the unfamiliar figure.

"Come on, Baa-chan… Don't you recognize me?" The person said in a male's voice. She couldn't make out the rest of him, as he was covered in a large cloak. An ANBU cloak, she noted with narrowed eyes.

"No, I don't," The Fifth fairly growled. "I don't know how the hell you got in here without anyone noticing or how you found the Forbidden Scroll, but you sure as hell aren't leaving until I find out."

"I got in here easily. I jumped and I walked and I jumped. Over the wall, through the town, and into your office window. Your ANBU suck, by the way. I didn't even try to evade them," The hooded man said. "And as for the Forbidden Scroll, I found it because I know what it looks like. Clever trick, hiding it amongst all those boring medical scrolls. Probably would've fooled any foreign shinobi."

"And how would you know what it looks like?" Tsunade asked, her temper on the rise. This bastard was really asking for it.

"Because I've stolen it before," The figure said. It couldn't be seen, but the Hokage knew this guy was giving her a shit-eating grin "Come on, Baa-chan. Put it together."

"…_Naruto_?" Tsunade slowly asked. He called her Baa-chan, but he didn't seem anything like her little brother. Then again, who else had stolen the Forbidden Scroll before? Sandaime's journals made several mentions of the incident, which was why she had moved the Scroll to her office in the first place.

"Yep," The figure said as he looked up at her. The Fifth got a glimpse of a carved ANBU mask behind the hood. "Or if I wanted to be dramatic…Yes and no, foolish woman! Muhahahaha!"

Tsunade just stared at him, a sweat-drop on her head. The cloaked figure shrugged and said, "Hey, I'm a demon. I have the urge to indulge in semi-evil every now and then. Kyuubi's instincts are pretty powerful, you know."

Demon?

The Hokage lunged forward and made an arcing swing with her arm, fully intending to disable this…Whoever this was. She was greatly surprised when the figure blurred upwards and over her fist.

Tsunade looked up and blinked at the sight of the man crouched upside-down on the ceiling, his body language screaming, 'Are you nuts?'

"Kami, Baa-chan! What's your problem?" The figure indignantly demanded. "Sheesh, I knew I wasn't going to have a warm welcome, but I never thought you'd try to kill me with that freaky strength of yours!"

"Enough games. Who are you and why are you here? And answer me for real," The Fifth growled upwards at the ninja.

"Fine, fine," The man grumbled and jumped off the ceiling to land in the center of the office, several paces behind Tsunade.

As the Hokage watched, the figure undid the clasp for the cloak and allowed it to drop to the floor. A strange garment was revealed underneath. It looked like a full body jumpsuit that was made out of deerskin. It had been dyed a dark blue color, though here and there someone had painted on a few ice-blue spirals. The man's face was covered by the ANBU mask, which seemed vaguely familiar, oddly enough. Where had she seen that design before? Her thoughts fled as the nin reached up and pulled the mask off, unveiling a head totally wrapped in cotton bandages. Where his eyes should've been, two dark lenses were barely exposed. Not an inch of his face was uncovered. The ninja was also wearing an odd forehead protector that had a large icicle engraved on it. So he _was_ from another village.

"Whoa, whoa, I'm from Konoha!" The shinobi yelled as Tsunade started to advance again. "Relax, Baa-chan. I'll show you."

"You'd better," Was all the Hokage growled.

The ninja reached up and unzipped the deerskin suit. He shrugged out of it and let it pool on the floor, grumbling something about itchy fur. Tsunade blinked at the outfit that was revealed. The shinobi was wearing a pair of navy-blue pants that had been worn so badly that they were torn off at the knees and converted into shorts. Unlike the standard shinobi footwear of sandal-boots, he wore a pair of thick boots that covered every inch of his feet up to his mid-shin. They also had unusually long and sharpened treads on the bottom for some reason. A black t-shirt, that was also rather ragged, could be seen through an open, dark-orange vest covering his torso. There was nothing else worthy of note aside from the standard side-pouch strapped to his right thigh. Well, that and the fact that every piece of the shinobi's skin was completely wrapped in gauze. As the Fifth watched, the ninja reached up and pulled off the forehead protector, then began to undo the bandages covering his head. Her eyes slowly widened as the face was revealed.

A face with whisker-marked cheeks.

"Hey," Naruto said as he pulled up the thick pair of goggles he'd been wearing underneath the bandages. He gave Tsunade a small grin as he shrugged. "Sorry it took me so long to get back."

"Naruto…" Tsunade whispered as she stared at the boy…no, _young man_ that stood before her.

"Half right," The blonde teen said. As the Hokage watched, one of his eyes slowly darkened into a crimson red color and his pupil extended into a slit. "I'm a little more than just Uzumaki Naruto, I'm afraid."

"The Kyuubi…" The Godaime muttered as her jaw dropped open. The Yamanaka girl had told her the vision she'd seen, but the Fifth hadn't actually believed it to be true. Or rather, she'd prayed it wasn't true.

"Again, half right," Naruto replied with a bit of a grin.

…That exposed a sharper than normal canine.

"I…need some sake…" Tsunade mumbled as she felt her knees go a little wobbly. Naruto quickly moved towards her and nudged her backwards so she was leaning against her desk.

"You okay, Baa-chan?" The teen asked, worry evident even in his red eye.

"I…So this was your plan?" The Hokage blurted out. Up close, she could see all the little variations in the colors spread throughout the crimson eye that watched her curiously. The eye blinked a bit, then slowly reverted to blue and returned to its normal shape. Tsunade noted that although Naruto's eyes were still blue, they were far darker than before. Each iris was a deep, twilight color. Despite the dark shade, each eye still held the electric intensity of his original bright blue orbs. They were incandescent, yet dark at the same time. It was disorienting to stare at for too long. The effect was made more surreal when she noticed that each pupil had a slight point at the top and bottom. It wasn't enough to really notice at a distance, but when the kid…kitsune was standing less than a foot away, the effect had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

"Why?" Tsunade managed to ask as she stared down at the boy.

"Naruto would do anything to protect his family. Even becoming me," The kitsune replied, with a sad but determined look in his eyes.

A different set of eyes, a different emotion, but still the same indomitable determination.

This was still her little brother.

The half-demon made little sound in surprise as Tsunade wrapped him up in a bear-hug. He stiffened a little, before he allowed himself to relax in the Hokage's embrace. The Fifth gently pressed her lips to his mess of wild blonde hair and fought back her tears.

"Idiot."

* * *

"Damn, these Sound-nins are just getting annoying. It's been awhile since we've had a really hard fight."

"Be thankful for the time off. I suspect Orochimaru is building new and stronger forces even as we speak. They won't be the ridiculous cannon-fodder we've been running into recently."

"Yeah, but even their jounin aren't hard to beat!"

"That's just because of our tag-teaming, Ino-chan. They haven't developed counter-tactics for it yet. I wouldn't be surprised if there are Sound-nins being trained specifically to assassinate us. We've certainly killed enough of their forces to warrant such a measure."

"Yeah, but how could they know how to counter the Sharin…Oh right, they have Sasuke. Orochimaru can get him to tell him all about it, right?" Ino asked as she looked over at Kakashi's shadow mottled face. The sunlight barely broke through the canopy of the cool forest they were traveling through.

"Unfortunately, yes. According to the information Shikamaru's genin team learned from the Sound 5, someone with a Level 2 Curse Seal can't disobey their master in any way," The copy-ninja replied as he pushed a tree branch away from his face. "In all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised if Orochimaru ordered Sasuke himself to kill us. He's probably grown strong enough by now. Naruto told the Hokage that Sasuke's Sharingan had grown to the mastered form during their fight…The same level as mine. And he has two. The same way a single eye is limited because it doesn't have depth perception, an optical jutsu or ability is limited when it doesn't have two eyes to work with. So his Sharingan is superior to mine now."

"_And_ he's an Uchiha, so it naturally works better for him. You worried about fighting him?" The blonde genin asked as she pushed through a large bush and stepped out into the open sunlight. They stood at the edge of a deep ravine that was bridged by a fallen tree. The woods around them seemed shadowy, even in midday. Ino walked halfway out onto the log and turned to face her sensei. "Well?'

Kakashi frowned a bit in thought as he stepped up to the edge of the chasm. He glanced about and took a moment to appreciate the rugged beauty of western Fire Country as he thought out his answer.

Team 7 was on their way back from an information gathering mission in northern Wind Country. The Leaf had been taking many requests from the Kazekage as of late. It seemed the man was worried about being assassinated or deposed or something any day now. The Sand leader was paranoid to the point of sending shinobi out for damn near any rumor that came their way. He was overstretching his forces to a degree where they could no longer keep up with their mission volume. As a result, the Kazekage was requesting missions from Konoha at least once a week. Kakashi suspected the only reason Tsunade didn't tell the man to fuck off was because of their alliance treaty. So they had to deal with Sand requests often, despite the low number of active Leaf-nins.

The mission was A Ranked, but it was still a total snap. They'd spent two days spying, one day reporting their info to the Kazekage, and four days taking the trip back to Konoha at a leisurely pace. They'd encountered three Sound chuunin leading five 'genin' on the way. The Sound-nins had used the usual tactic of sending the mercenaries into a killing frenzy, only to be dumbfounded when their own troops turned right around to attack them. Ino had used a mid-level gen-jutsu on the cannon-fodder to trick them into attacking their own commanders. In their frenzied state, fooling them with illusions was pathetically easy. She didn't even need to use her Limit.

After the brief fight, one chuunin was left alive with all his fellow nins and the riffraff dead. Kakashi had easily finished him off. The ease of the fight was the source of Ino's complaining, which had redoubled when they'd found nothing useful on the corpses. This all had led to an on-again, off-again debate between the two shinobi that had dragged on for the better part of two days leading up to Ino's present question.

"No, I'm not worried about facing him," Kakashi finally said after several moments and walked towards Ino. The genin started moving again and both ninjas disappeared into the forest on the other side of the ravine.

"Why? He does have two and a half years training under a Sannin, a Level 2 Curse Seal, _and_ a mastered Sharingan. He sounds pretty formidable," Ino asked after several moments of walking in silence.

"Just on paper," Kakashi answered. The genin didn't stop walking through the green underbrush as she gave the copy-nin a questioning glance. At her look, the jounin explained, "What I mean is, that's the same mistake made by Sandaime, myself, the academy teachers, and everyone else who revered Sasuke's potential. On paper, he's a superb and flawless ninja, with an excellent record and formidable talents. He's the very ideal of everything a shinobi should be. He's a genius, he's powerful, and he keeps his cool in battle. He has a strong Bloodline, a skilled teacher, and a powerful seal that boosts his combat abilities. When you list it like that, anyone would want him in their Village or as their student."

Kakashi let out a dry, derisive chuckle as he muttered, "I can't believe I fell for such an obvious failure."

"Failure? What the hell are you talking about?" Ino sharply asked. Her time as Copy-ninja Kakashi's personal student had taught her one major thing: the man may screw-up occasionally, but overall he was _good_.

Kakashi rarely said or did anything unless it was for a reason, even if it seemed ridiculous or lazy. The exceptions were his little habits, but even those he took advantage of. He consistently picked up a wealth of info while reading Icha Icha Paradise and wandering around town just because people assumed he wasn't listening. Kakashi could even be downright manipulative sometimes, though he rarely showed that side to his few close friends (and he didn't bother with Ino because of her Bloodline.) He analyzed failures and flaws both in himself and in his opponents with his powerful mind to a degree that few other geniuses could rival, though he did occasionally make mistakes, as the whole Sasuke-Naruto fiasco had proven.

In other words, if Hatake Kakashi said Uchiha Sasuke was a failure, odds are the traitor was a failure. How, Ino didn't know, but she was curious about the jounin's logic on the missing-nin.

"Sasuke is a major failure if you look at things from a practical level," Kakashi explained. He halted his movements and waited for his student to face him, before he went into detail. "The Curse Seal, for instance, permanently limits his growth. True, it makes him stronger now, but in the long run it will only limit his full potential. It worms it's way into the mind and body of its bearer like a performance enhancing drug, making the user dependant on it both physically and mentally. I'll bet you my paycheck for the next half year that while Sasuke is powerful in his Curse Seal form, his natural form is weaker than it should be. Also, there's evidence learned by Naruto and Lee, and supported by info from Jiraiya-sama, that the Curse Seal has a corrosive effect on the body. Short-term overuse will badly damage the user to the point of incapacitating them. I don't know what the long-term effects are, but they certainly can't be good.

"On another point, by relying on someone else to supply him with power, Sasuke has lowered the glass ceiling on how far he can go. As long as he has the Curse Seal, he _can't_ get stronger without Orochimaru. The Seal simply won't allow it unless that's Orochimaru's wish. And Orochimaru is training and molding Sasuke to become his next vessel. In other words, Sasuke's growing into a mold for Orochimaru; _not_ into a mold for Sasuke as he should be. That's going to cause conflict in him that wouldn't be present in any normal shinobi. And at such a critical age and stage in his growth, being both mentally and physically disrupted like that will…I hate to cripple…Hmm, _enfeeble_ Sasuke's growth, to a certain degree. Even if we recapture him at some point and get that damned Curse Seal off him, the damage to his growth has likely already been done.

"And also, even the fully mastered Sharingan has its limits. Everything has a weakness, Ino-chan. You only have to know where to look for it. And the Sharingan is a bad thing in this case, since having a Bloodline that copies jutsu will only further discourage Sasuke from growing on his own."

The copy-nin shrugged and said, "In the end, he doesn't work to gain power and skill, his growth is stunted or deformed, and he doesn't have the right balance of priorities in life. And while, on many levels Sasuke and I are the same, genius, Sharingan, powerful, yadda-yadda, there's still one major difference between us and it's the reason why I don't fear him at all."

"What's that?" Ino asked with a slight smirk, knowing her sensei's response was going to be good.

"Simple," Kakashi replied, with partially amused, partially serious look in his eye. "I'm twenty-nine years old. I've been a ninja on active duty since I was five. I grew up on the battlefield. I was killing men before I had my six birthday. Battle has been a part of my life for so long that I can scarcely remember anything else. Sasuke is fifteen. He's been on active duty since he was twelve. He grew up in a completely comfortable home, with no contact with battle until the day Itachi killed his entire clan. And even after that, he had no combat experience until we went to Wave Country. Twenty-four years of die-hard battle experience versus three years of killing whoever pissed off Orochimaru this week. End of story. Even if he outclasses me in raw power-"

"You can still figure out a way to beat him. Gotcha," Ino said with a laugh. "It'd be nice to see the look on the traitor's face if you kicked the shit out of him."

"Or you. You're much better now than he was when he left Konoha. Once your Bloodline is fully mastered, you'll have an excellent advantage against him. I think it'd be more insulting to have a slim, blonde girl defeat him than the 'Great Copy-Ninja Kakashi,'" The copy-nin said, adding a mock blustery, haughty tone to his title. He also puffed himself up a bit, like an announcer for a royal attendant or one of those pompous fools on the Council.

Ino's sharp laughter echoed in the forest at her sensei's antics. They started walking again and continued for several minutes in companionable silence.

Kakashi had just turned to ask his student what she wanted for lunch (fresh dried rations or old dried rations…yum), when a powerful pulse in his hand seals made him let out a sharp gasp.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Ino tensely asked in a low voice, her eyes flickering between her sensei and the surrounding forest.

"It's nothing. Not an enemy at least," The jounin said as he peeled his glove off his left hand. Jounin and student eyed the red spiral on the back of his hand. Kakashi suddenly felt another power surge in the chakra and they both watched a white glow ripple outwards from the central dot and radiate throughout the nine lines. It soon faded and though they stared for several more minutes, nothing else happened.

"We're about a day out from Konoha, right?" Kakashi asked as he put his glove back on.

"Yeah, at the rate we're walking anyways," Ino replied as she watched her sensei. She could sense through her Bloodline that he felt oddly jittery about something, though she couldn't tell what.

"Let's pick up the pace. I want to talk to Tsunade-sama about something," The jounin ordered, seconds before he leapt up into the trees to move faster.

Ino grumbled something about bipolar copy-nins, but followed regardless.

So much for their time off.

* * *

"Let me get a good look at you." Tsunade said as she gently released the teen and held him a couple feet away by her hands on his shoulders.

Naruto's body had definitely changed and though it aggravated her that it was the result of the Kyuubi's meddling, the Hokage had to admit it was a good thing. The blonde had shot up in height and was now standing just as tall as her nose. Though not as tall as Shizune, Tsunade still wasn't a short woman, so she estimated his height was about 5'3" or 5'4". Not that impressive, until she considered he was only fifteen. He'd likely be at least as tall as Kakashi when he was full grown.

"You've finally gotten taller," The Hokage remarked as she looked the teen up and down.

"Side-effect of the fusion. Can't grow very well living on only ramen, sad to say. In my case it was even a form of malnutrition. When Kyuubi and Naruto merged, the long term damage was undone so I finally caught my growth spurt. I've grown out of three or four sets of clothes this last year," 'Naruto' said, with a bit of a sheepish shrug.

"You fused…? So that was the plan…" Tsunade said with a slightly bewildered look on her face

"What did you think my plan was?" The kitsune asked her curiously.

"Letting the Kyuubi have partial control or adding demonic properties to your body," The Fifth said. It was her turn to give sheepish shrug.

"Nope. Full merging…Err, kind of. It's pretty complicated," 'Naruto' said with a bit of tired groan. "I probably scared the shit out of most of the continent with the energy backlash."

"Yes, you did. Or at least everyone here in Konoha. So what should I call you? Did you make a new name for yourself?" Tsunade asked in a soft tone. The demon part of the teen worried her, but not enough to banish her overwhelming relief at having Naru…whoever back home.

"I've gone under a couple fake names, but you can call me Naruto if you like. It's as much my name as Kyuubi and it makes sense considering it's still his body," The rechristened Naruto answered.

"Good, it'll be less confusing. What kind of names did you travel under?" The Hokage asked as she slowly walked a circle around the teen, taking in the changes from all angles.

"Oh, a few odd ones here and there. I went by Hatake Kitsune for awhile after I left Wind Country. Later I pretended I was Ubi Kyu, from a clan of demon hunters," The half-demon casually replied.

Tsunade gave a laugh at both names, "Ubi Kyu…Cute word play. And I'm sure Hatake-san will be most honored by your choice in surnames. 'Field Fox,' huh?"

"Can't claim I'm not creative," Naruto said with a bit of a smirk. He blinked when the Hokage nudged him to stand up straight.

"Hold still," Tsunade ordered. The differences stood out more and more as she looked at the teen. Except for his height and eyes, most of the changes were rather subtle. Naruto's hair was longer, though not by much. He had probably just forgotten to get it cut recently. It had lost the sea urchin look, though it remained spiky and untamable. It was a darker shade of blonde as well, with the roots being almost a light auburn color. The look was pretty good on him and was barely noticeable unless she was up close. Curiously, she ran her hand through the thick hair (which felt oddly similar to fur) and accidentally exposed one ear tip. She stared a little closer and noticed it was slightly elongated. Again, it was a barely noticeable difference, as the ear didn't even form a point. Still…

"Say 'ah,'" The Fifth ordered in her best doctor's voice. Naruto stared at her in puzzlement for a moment, then shrugged and did so.

Tsunade nodded, her suspicions confirmed as she got a full look at the slightly longer and sharper canines. She bumped the teen's chin with her hand, signaling that he could close his mouth. His face had lost most of its roundness and softness. He had a sharper look to his features and a broader chin than she remembered. He still looked young, but the change only a single year had brought about was startling. He was growing into a rugged, handsome young man. If Sasuke wasn't careful, he was going to lose all his fan-girls. Err, the ones he had left anyways.

Frowning a little, Tsunade noticed that the kitsune's cheek marks were different. Each slash was sharper and darker in appearance. They were noticeably longer too, with each running down to just under his jaw-line, like a loose parody of Jiraiya's red face markings. It was a pretty obvious change, but the Fifth doubted anyone who didn't personally know Naruto would even notice.

'Not that any of this will matter much to the villagers or the Council. All they'll care is the 'demon-brat' is back,' The Sannin grimly thought to herself.

All in all, it was still Naruto's body, but she could see Kyuubi just under the surface in places. Tsunade still wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Perhaps the biggest change of all was the way the teen carried himself. Naruto stood with a confidence he'd never had before. It wasn't the blustery, over-bearing ego of a fool and neither was it the cold, conceited arrogance of a prodigy. Naruto held the aura of one who had been properly seasoned through experience and was confident in both his strengths and faults. He gave the impression of being prepared by being unprepared. It was remarkably like Shikamaru's self-confidence, though backed by more experience. Naruto certainly didn't have that before he left, even after Jiraiya's training. He must have picked it up during his travels. Judging from the odd headband he'd been wearing, he had probably hired himself out to another village and performed missions for them. Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly allowed in Konoha, especially considering he was a missing-nin.

Which left one question to be asked.

"Are you a threat to Konoha?" Tsunade asked seriously as she stared into Naruto's incandescent eyes.

"Sure," The kitsune replied in an equally serious tone, his odd eyes remaining unblinking as he returned the Hokage's firm stare with one of his own. "I'm a threat to anyone in this village. Am I an enemy? No."

Kage and half-demon stared at each other for several long moments. Naruto hid nothing in his eyes. Was he half-demon? Yes. Was he a force to be reckoned with? Absolutely. Was he a threat to Konoha? He was a threat to anyone who picked a fight with him. Was he the Leaf's enemy? His eyes replied, 'Only if they want me to be.' There was no malice and no pleading in the dark irises. Naruto was allowing the Godaime to see whatever she wanted to see, the good with bad. Her respect for the teen grew a notch. It took a lot of balls and willpower to allow one's self to be read with such brutal honesty, especially after being trained since childhood to be emotionless.

But that didn't matter as much as the fact that Naruto wasn't lying.

Tsunade let out a sigh of relief and leaned back against her desk.

"Good. No matter how poorly this village has treated you, I'm glad you haven't sunk to their level or lower," She said as she watched the teen in front of her.

"I'm not a weakling, Baa-chan. Butchering a bunch of fools would only prove that I'm a weak coward. I have a lot of flaws, but weakness and cowardice aren't on the list," Naruto replied with a level and serious tone.

"I would have thought it'd be hard to resist, considering you have the Kyuubi's instincts," The Hokage stated as she watched the teen curiously for his reaction.

The kitsune snorted and said, "The Kyuubi detested weaklings on a level that you can't imagine. Naruto held little sympathy for weaker people, but it never entered his mind to actually harm for that reason alone. It evens out to me just ignoring them, unless they try something stupid against me."

Tsunade calmly replied, "Well, that's part of the reason Sarutobi-sensei made that law. It's mostly to protect you, but it's also in place to avoid nasty situations where someone would actually try to go after you."

"Well, the old coot had a _few_ good ideas in his life," Naruto said with a cheeky wink, getting a light chuckle from the Fifth. His attitude turned serious as he said, "I suppose you want to hear my story, don't you?"

"You did promise and you always keep your promises, right?" Tsunade said with a slight grin. It faded as she considered something. "_You_ do, right?"

"Kyuubi was a vicious embodiment of fire and rage, but it was still a demon of its word," The kitsune replied with a firm nod. He grinned a little evilly and said, "It just never _gave_ it and avoided the whole oath keeping problem entirely."

The Fifth snorted in amusement. She walked around to the back of her desk and sat down in her chair. Leaning back, she said, "Well, might as well get started."

"Where do you want me to begin?" Naruto asked as he sat down in one of the chairs in front of the Hokage's desk. His eyes traced over the still open Forbidden Scroll for a moment, before he met Tsunade's gaze again.

"I don't even want to know why you were reading this," The Godaime grumbled as she rolled the scroll up and tied it closed. She set it on the floor next to her chair and contemplated something for a moment. Curiously, she asked, "How did you ever get the Kyuubi to agree to the merging? I would've thought the demon would try to avoid such a thing at all costs."

Naruto got a far away look in his dark blue eyes and stared at the desk in front of him. The silence dragged out for several minutes before he finally focused on Tsunade again. The Fifth was taken aback by the..._intensity_ in his eyes. She couldn't even begin to describe the emotion the kitsune was displaying.

"Do you have any idea _any_ idea what it's like to live for thousands upon thousands of years and to suddenly _know_ you're going to end?" Naruto said in a low and slightly ragged voice. "Not die. _End_. No heaven; no hell. Just oblivion. That's what the Kyuubi faced. It decided that if the choice was between not existing or becoming part of a new being, it would take the route that at least had a chance."

"…I don't understand," Tsunade finally said as she stared at the teen (who was _not_ a teen) in shock.

"I know. Feel glad you don't. I wouldn't wish that kind of choice upon most of my enemies, let alone on you," The half-demon responded. He leaned back in his chair and let out a sighed as he briefly rubbed his eyes. "I suppose I should explain why the Kyuubi was in such peril."

"That might be a good start," Tsunade said, still rather stunned.

"Okay, first I should say that the seal the Yondaime made had an extra function to it," Naruto continued as he let his hands drop to the armrests. "Long story short, every time I drew chakra from the Kyuubi, the seal tore out a hunk of the fox's essence and destroyed it in my inner coils. Eventually, the Kyuubi would run out of chakra and be destroyed completely. If a demon dies normally, their soul is sent to hell where they reform. In theory, they can escape the underworld and come back to the Earth-plane, though it might take centuries to pull it off. Yondaime knew that and he added that extra trick to the seal to destroy the Kyuubi permanently. There was no escape for the fox, even if I died. Without my spirit to control the chakra, the seal would have free reign to destroy the Kyuubi using the last of my body's chakra.

"The Kyuubi is old. Very old. Oblivion might not bother some people, but to a creature that has seen so many years it's the worst possible punishment. The fox even considered being trapped in my soul as I passed on to the afterlife as a better alternative than simply ending. With that hanging over its head, it didn't take long for it to decide to go with the fusion plan."

Tsunade stared at the 'teen' for several long moments before she asked, "How old is Kyuubi? We never did learn much about it, aside from the fact that records exist that predate the fallen cities. It was one of those legendary catastrophes that plagued the ancients from time to time."

"_Old_," Naruto said firmly. "I can't accurately tell you its age, since the fox didn't really care about years, but I guess it's between four and seven hundred thousand years old. It ate mammoths and wooly rhinos for breakfast."

"I had no idea it was so ancient. Err, manmosu? What the hell is that?" The Fifth asked with a stunned, then puzzled expression.

"An ancient, hairy elephant that went extinct about thirteen thousand years ago. Never mind, it's not important," Naruto said at the Hokage's disbelieving stare.

"Oookay. Anyways…What was the Kyuubi like? It couldn't have been as blindly savage as it seemed, considering you're not trying to kill everyone," Tsunade asked. She was more curious about the effects the demon's personality had on Naruto's than the beast itself. She really didn't want the blonde to start tearing people apart in the street if she could avoid it.

"Surprisingly intellectual," The kitsune answered. He grinned at Tsunade's strange expression and said, "The Kyuubi enjoyed learning a great deal. It knew thousands of jutsu just because it was curious and watched humans go about their lives. It didn't just limit its experiences to fighting either. It read through entire libraries all across the world. The few humans it came close to respecting were Shakespeare, Twain, and Poe. It thought Dante was an overblown, self-righteous ass though and leveled several cities in Europe in retaliation to his book, 'The Inferno.' Then again, Kyuubi has actually been to Hell, so reading about some idiot human's perception of it probably pissed it off."

"I have no idea who or what you're talking about," Tsunade deadpanned. Those names weren't even part of their language, for Kami's sake.

"Long dead authors from other lands far away," Naruto replied, mimicking the Hokage's expression. He ruined it when he crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out. The Fifth found herself laughing, despite her confusion at the teen's odd words.

"So the Kyuubi was a closet book-fetish. You never can tell with the evil types," Tsunade drawled in amusement. Her expression turned serious as she asked, "Do you know why it attacked Konoha? Even after fifteen years, we still have _no_ idea why it came after us. It'd be nice to finally answer that puzzle."

Naruto got a thoughtful expression as he tapped his chin. He seemed to find the right response and looked back at the Hokage.

"Don't have a clue."

Tsunade's face-vault nearly broke her desk in half. After she pulled her head off the desk and peeled a mission report of her cheek, the Fifth glared at the kitsune and demanded, "What the hell do you mean you don't know, brat?"

"Hey, I'm older than you, _hag_!" Naruto yelled back indignantly.

"Moron!"

"Witch!

"Dumb-ass!"

"Old lady!"

Tsunade had just leaped over the desk and grabbed Naruto by his collar to clock him over the head, when the door suddenly opened.

"Hokage-sama! Are you alright! We heard…Uh, what're you doing?" The guard said as he stared at the Fifth.

Tsunade realized she had one hand clenched in mid-air and the other drawn back, ready to punch seemingly nothing. Naruto was nowhere in sight.

"What the hell does it look like!" The Godaime roared, dropping her hands to her sides. She quickly ushered the man out of the room before he could process her statement. "Now get out until I call for you!"

Slamming the doors closed, Tsunade turned and stared across her office. She slowly walked forward and thought about the best hiding place for the kitsune to run to. She slowly circled her desk and pulled the chair away.

"You've gotten good," The Fifth stated as she stared at the square space under her desk where her legs usually went.

"Thanks," Naruto said as he relaxed his arms and legs. He'd been bracing himself against the wood to stay off the floor and out of sight behind the front of the desk. He crawled out and dusted himself off as he stood up to his full height. "I had a lot of practice hiding and figuring out ways to quickly escape this past year."

"Why?" Tsunade asked curiously. "We weren't hunting you and I don't think Orochimaru was after you either."

"Akatsuki," The kitsune grimly replied. The Hokage felt a pang of fear for the teen, before she reminded herself that he was home and safe. Whatever bad situations he'd been in, he'd obviously managed to escape. "I had a few run-ins with them while I was gone. Two times they almost had me."

"Really...Tell me about them," The Fifth ordered, looking every bit the Hokage she was as she considered the threat that Akatsuki posed.

"Well, the first time was in northern Wind Country and I was…"

* * *

Naruto hit the ground and rolled, coming back to his feet immediately and running without any real slow down in his speed. His adrenaline ran high and his breath came rapidly as he raced through the rocky forest. There were ancient lava flows all over the place this far north in Wind Country. They'd been exposed and eroded by the winds and pine trees. The flows and trees provided him plenty of cover as he moved (he shuddered to think what would happen had he been further south and in the open desert,) but the rocks cut up his feet as he moved. He had yet to replace his sandals and Gaara hadn't brought a spare pair with him. His healing factor kept it from being a critical problem, but it still slowed him down.

Behind him, he heard a familiar noise and dove to the ground, skidding along on his stomach as a massive sheet of metal slashed through the air (and trees) just overhead. Dammit, he was _not_ ready for a fight like this yet!

Naruto was up and running down the slope again before the sliced trees had even begun to fall.

Panting, he frantically looked around for a place to hide or at least take cover. Though the ground was littered in rocks, they were only large enough to break his toes or cut his heels open as he ran; _not_ big enough to duck behind. The blonde boy cursed as he accidentally smashed his foot into a piece of basalt hard enough to crush the last three toes. The pain made him trip and fall. He continued his path down the large ridge in an undignified roll, rather than a run.

Oh well. Whatever worked, right?

Naruto didn't see the ravine coming until after he rolled right off the edge of it. It wasn't very deep, but it was quite long. He bounced off the side and continued his painful trip several hundred feet down the slide-like gully. He finally landed on his back with an impact that knocked the breath out of him. For several moments, all he could do was lie there, until the distant rumbling of trees crashing into the ground reminded him of the current situation. He struggled to his feet and moved off through the underbrush. Now he could afford to move a little slower as the unexpected rolling trip had put a decent amount of distant between him and his cloaked pursuer. He suddenly came to a dead stop and dropped behind a fallen log as he heard something odd.

Voices?

Naruto carefully pushed his way through a large scrub bush and peered through. His eyes widened as he saw a four man Sand-nin team walking along a small road that was little more than a beaten path. They looked like decent level ninjas, with at least one jounin and a couple chuunin, but the kitsune knew they'd be no match for an Akatsuki agent, assuming they'd even be inclined to help him. So what to do?

A loud cracking sound of a tree falling several dozen yards away caused the Sand-nins to divert their attention back down the road. Naruto took the opportunity to silently move out of the brush, grab the shinobi with the weakest chakra signature (who was luckily the closest to him), and haul him back into the underbrush without a sound. He quickly knocked out the nin with a well placed blow to the back of the head and stripped the other boy of his outfit. The kitsune quickly donned the gear and focused on the nin's facial features and reddish-brown hair color.

Not a full minute had passed since the Sand-nin had been grabbed when another Sand-nin that looked identical to the first stepped back out and took the original's position.

Naruto fell into line as the Sand jounin motioned for them to continue their trek at a cautious pace. The kitsune wasn't planning on staying with the Wind Country shinobi for long and five minutes later he was already looking off to the sides of the path for a place in the woods to dodge into. He had just found a decent looking side path through the scrub brush, when a large tree collapsed ten feet in front of them, blocking their advance. The Sand-nins immediately leapt backwards into defensive positions. They jerked in surprise when another tree fell to cut the road off from the back. Naruto deliberately acted like a panicking genin, while he was quickly running through his escape options.

His thoughts were broken when his eyes fell on the first tree and the large, cloaked man who stood on it.

Koutetsu Tsurugi, to his credit, didn't posture or gloat. The Cloud missing-nin simply raised his giant sword to the sky and said two words.

"Touken Kouu."

'Cold-Steel Rain!' Naruto thought in fear as a mirror of the sword's blade shot out of the first and into the air above them. The blade exploded, with the shards shooting downwards far faster than the kitsune or the Sand-nins could dodge. Knowing he was going to be hit anyways, Naruto brought his arms up to cover his head rather than running. Cold steel slammed into his arms, chest, and stomach with several loud, meaty thuds. He fell over to the sounds of the Sand shinobi's screams as they were cut into pieces. He hit the ground face down and repressed a scream of agony as the slivers were driven further into his body. A body collapsed right next to him, partially obscuring his form from the missing-nin's view. In the silence that followed, Naruto heard the sounds of the large man rolling the first body he came to and whacking it with his fist several times.

"Not this one…" He heard the bald criminal grumble.

Shit, Tsurugi would know immediately he was alive when he got to him. Naruto almost panicked, frantically trying to think of a jutsu or a trick to save his skin. Shit, if only Gaara was here, they'd tear this guy apar-

Wait… It would work, if he could do it in time. It might also kill him, but he had to take the risk.

A cold shot of adrenaline slicked its way up Naruto's spine when he heard the Akatsuki agent stop two feet away from him. The body in front of him was suddenly kicked over.

'Please don't check me yet, please!' The kitsune pray in his mind. It seemed to pay off, as Tsurugi knelt a couple feet next to him and turned his back to the boy as he checked the dead Sand-nin. Naruto didn't hesitate and as silently as possible, brought his hand together and formed six hands seals. He didn't dare say the words, even with a whisper, so he mouthed them instead.

_Gishi no jutsu._

Tsurugi whirled around as he heard a slight scraping noise behind him. The Sand-nin was laying face down and completely motionless. With a frown, the large missing-nin rolled the body over. Unfamiliar features and red-brown hair indicated that this was not his quarry. The nin was obviously dead, with blank, unfocused eyes reflecting the overcast sky. Tsurugi reached down and checked for a pulse. He held his hand in front of the boy's face and didn't feel the slightest wisp of breath. A slight drizzle had started and as the missing-nin watched, a drop hit the boy's open eye. The Sand-nin didn't even twitch. He was definitely dead.

"Couldn't be the fox-brat. He'd survive this," The large man muttered as he stared at the corpse. If that was true, why did it feel like he was missing something?

The Akatsuki agent narrowed his eyes and thumped the boy's chest several times with his large fist. He shrugged when the nin's features didn't change. So much for a henge. He stood and walked off into the darkening woods, intent on finding the Kyuubi-vessel's trail.

Two minutes later, Naruto's entire body convulsed slightly as he took in air. Damn, that was weird. He'd been totally aware of his surroundings, but he couldn't react in any way. He'd invented the fake-death skill after Gaara described his false-sleep jutsu in detail. He'd scrounged up a similar skill the Kyuubi had memories of and modified it. He and Gaara had taken turns practicing it, with one ready to resuscitate the other in case they screwed up the jutsu. Fortunately, they hadn't had any close calls and both had mastered the skill quickly. They had thought it a handy ability to have, in case either of them was in a fight that went bad.

Or if either of them was attacked by an insane cult.

Naruto stood up, slowly looking around and making sure the missing-nin wasn't planning a surprise ambush. Not sensing anything, the kitsune immediately ran back the way he'd came. He stopped long enough to yank the largest metal splinters out of his chest and to chuck them in some bushes, before he kept running back up the slope. As he ran, his features slowly changed back to their normal appearance, though he kept the Sand outfit on. He cursed as his bare foot hit a stone, the freshly healed toe bones breaking yet again. He hadn't been able to take the Sand-nin's sandals, as they were several sizes smaller than his feet.

Good thing Tsurugi missed that little detail.

* * *

"Wow…" Tsunade said as Naruto finished his story. "You got lucky."

"I know. If it weren't for the fact that I'm a demon, I'd say I owe a couple deities some huge favors," The kitsune said as he sipped some tea that the Hokage had smuggled in halfway through the story. "Anyways, I managed to backtrack and head north a day's travel. I was able to hide my tracks better that night and I got away scot-free for the most part."

"I can't believe he missed you not wearing any shoes," Tsunade muttered as she watched the teen.

"Hey, your guard missed the pile of clothes in the middle of your office, so I guess an Akatsuki could slip up over a detail like that," Naruto replied with a shrug.

"Hmm, good point," The Fifth muttered as she glared at the door. Shaking her head a little, she looked back at the blonde. "Tell me about that jutsu you used."

"Gishi no jutsu (Fake Death Skill) uses subtle chakra blocks to halt the heart, stop the lungs, and block any direct control over the body the brain has," The half-demon promptly replied, not at all concerned about telling the Godaime his jutsu secrets. She was probably the only person he trusted absolutely with them, aside from Jiraiya. "The mind remains totally aware and the senses still work perfectly, though reacting to anything you see or feel is impossible. After you perform the jutsu, you can either use it immediately or 'store' it to use with a mental command later, so you can drop dead without making any hand seals first. You release the jutsu mentally, though if you wait too long-"

"It's all over and you die for real," Tsunade said, her sharp medical mind doing the proverbial math. "That would be a useful skill for medic-nins to have, considering how often they get overpowered in fights. How long can it be used for safely?"

"Even for a well trained shinobi, two minutes tops. I'd recommend a minute and fifteen seconds. By two minutes, you're to the point of blacking out so it's really pushing it at that point," Naruto answered with a bit of a shrug.

"I hate to say it, but it could be a handy suicide tool for captured nins as well. Good thing Orochimaru doesn't know it," The Hokage thoughtfully replied. Her sharp eyes focused on teen as she asked, "Well trained, huh? How long can you hold it for?"

"Eight minutes," Naruto casually answered.

Tsunade nearly spluttered as she demanded, "How? Your healing factor gives you an advantage in most areas, but it probably eats up oxygen much faster than normal."

"It does. That's why I figured out a way to burn ambient chakra in place of oxygen, which keeps my O2 supply going longer," The kitsune calmly replied. "I go through my reserves at an insane rate though. Eight minutes is how long I can go before I run out of chakra and oxygen."

"It's that inefficient? Even after absorbing the Kyuubi's chakra?" The Fifth asked with a surprised look on her face.

"I didn't absorb all the fox's chakra at once, Baa-chan. I would've been blown apart into a hundred pieces if I tried to take in that kind of power all at once, though thanks for the vote of confidence," Naruto said with an amused smile.

"How'd you pull that off?" Tsunade asked.

Naruto tugged at the loose bandages dangling around his neck. He turned and lifted his hair off his neckline while pulling the gauze down.

"See it? During the ritual, I created a powerful seal to keep the fox's excess chakra in check and stored away," He said. The Fifth stood up from her desk and walked over to the teen to stare at the marking he'd revealed. She could only see part of it, but from what was exposed it was a seal in the same weird language she and Jiraiya had encountered before.

"What is it?" Tsunade quietly asked as she reached out and traced the black and red markings on the boy's skin. There was no physical difference between his normal skin and the seal covered skin except the color.

"Tenma Fuu. A demon seal. They're used to do…well, pretty much anything. In this case, it restrains all of the demon chakra I can't handle and keeps it from killing me. I release small amounts of it at a time when my body is ready to handle the power," Naruto informed. He shivered slightly as the Hokage's cool fingers traced across his bandage warmed skin.

"I see. That explains an awful lot. How many do you have?" Tsunade asked as she stared at the odd marking.

"Six, each doing all sorts of things," The kitsune answered.

"_Six_! …Wait, wait. Grab your stuff. We're going to the hospital. I want to check them all out personally and have a less public place to do it in," The Fifth said as she pulled the bandages back up. "Can you disguise yourself into one of the…Wait, how _did_ you disguise yourself if you weren't using a henge?"

Naruto closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as he concentrated hard. As Tsunade watched, his face slowly changed shape. His hair darkened to black and became shinier. His face grew oval shaped and soft. His height increased several inches until he was slightly taller than the Fifth herself. His angular, male body grew curves and became slimmer. In less than a minute, a perfect replica of…_Shizune_ sat in the chair in front of the Hokage. Err, perfect except for the fact that she was wearing Naruto's odd outfit.

The young 'woman' stood and gave a fox-grin that was unlike any expression the tranquil medic-nin ever used normally. It was more than a little unnerving.

"How the hell…? Shape-shifting?" Tsunade muttered as she inspected Naruto head to toe.

"How do you think a several hundred foot tall demon-fox spied on humans, Baa-chan?" The dark-haired woman said with an amused tone.

"Amazing. You're making a habit of surprising me, aren't you," The Hokage rhetorically asked as she eyed the kitsune. "How does it work?"

"…_does it work?" He was asking the dark-haired, copper-skinned man in front of him. The dusty wind blew the man's black hair and the tassels on his buckskin garments all about._

"_Ha! The great Lord of the East is asking me for help with a simple skill? Hahaha!" The man's wild laughter sounded eerily like howling yips._

"_Quit being so foolish. You're a Lord as well, if memory serves. Act your station. Are you a wolf or a hyena?" He asked the strange fellow in front of him._

"_Bah! Who wants to be either? As one you're always grouchy and biting at things and as the other you're a creature that takes great delight in rolling around in your own shit! What a wonderful choice you present, Fox! I select the invisible option, the unseen answer, the undiscoverable path! I remain me, myself, my own, the wonderful and great! Ahahahaha!" The copper-skinned man loudly declared, his grin baring his shiny white teeth. He turned and spun around in a circle with his arms stretched out._

"_Will you stop yelling? My ears aren't just for show you know. It's not like you have to talk very loud for me to hear you anyways," He grumbled and gestured to the empty, rocky desert that surrounded them as far as the eye could see._

"_I always wondered about those ears of yours…" The copper-skinned man muttered in reply, scratching his chin in thought. "So how are you in human form if you can't change shape?"_

"_A complex illusion. It's rather uncomfortable and I can't use it for long before it falls apart. Your ability, on the other hand, is nigh permanent from what I can tell and also lets you use the humans' skills," He said as more dust kicked up between them._

"_And what do I get out of this, Nine-tails?" The grinning man asked._

"_My assistance in pulling that prank on the Northern Lord that you've been dying to do for the last two hundred years, Trickster," He replied with a wicked grin._

"_Ohhhh…Oooohhh! Oooohhhhaaaahahahahahaha!" The man started laughing at the top of his lungs. The strange fellow started dancing around in circles, acting giddy with joy._

"_I take it we have a deal, Coyote?" He dryly asked as the other man bounced about._

"_Ahem, yes…Definitely. Absolutely. Hee…Hee…Hah**ahahahahahah!**" The man howled in laughter as a dark cyclone ripped up around him, completely engulfing the odd person. The twister grew in size till it was over two hundred feet tall. Dirt and rock whipped up into as a pair of angular, amber eyes stared out of it._

"**_Come Fox! Follow me south to the lands of my humans! There I'll show you the art of Skin Walking!"_**

_With that, Coyote spun off across the desert, loud howling laughter trailing in the youkai's wake._

_He didn't hesitate and reverted to his natural, enormous canine form. It bounded across the desert, using its insane friend's laughter as its guide. The bright sun and rugged winds felt nice on its fu-_

"Naruto!" Tsunade yelled into his (her?) face as she shook the kitsune's shoulders.

"Wha-What? Baa-chan?" The dark-haired woman asked in confusion. She shook her head and cleared her thoughts. "Oh yeah. I remember now."

"What was that? You blanked out for a few seconds there," The Hokage asked, worried at the slightly dazed look in Naruto's eyes.

"Just a little trip down memory lane," Naruto replied, shaking her head again and causing her dark hair to fly about. Tsunade caught a lock of it in her fingers and marveled at the accuracy of the texture. It felt as silky as the real Shizune's hair did.

"Does it have to with this? This is incredibly accurate," The Fifth said.

"Yeah, kind of. I'll explain it a little later when you look at my seals," The kitsune answered.

"Okay. How does this shape-shifting skill work? You never told me," Tsunade asked as she stepped back.

"Kyuubi learned it from an old friend some time ago. He couldn't master the highest level, but no one else could besides its friend. Anyways, it was a rather simple skill for the fox to pull off, considering his body was just loose dust and matter held together by chakra," Naruto said as she brushed the black hair out of her eyes.

"And you? How easy is it for you to do?" The Hokage asked, getting the feeling the boy…girl…whatever… wasn't telling her something.

"It's a lot harder for me to do, since I'm real flesh and blood. It has a bit of a weakness when it comes to my body," The half-demon replied with a shrug.

"And that is?" Tsunade prompted.

"It hurts like hell! The change is excruciating, especially when I do it fast," Naruto informed with an indignant look. "The faster I do it, the more it hurts. My body also becomes extra-sensitive while I'm in a different shape, so I can't take as much pain as I normally can."

"I see. I guess everything has a weakness somewhere. Well, this explains all the legends about shape-shifting foxes," The Godaime muttered to herself. She shrugged it off and said, "Alright, get your stuff together and put on the ANBU uniform. We'll just walk over to the… Naruto?"

"Yeah?" The dark-haired woman replied. She looked up to see Tsunade holding out the ANBU mask to her.

"Where did you get this?" The Fifth asked, with an odd note in her voice.

"Oh…I stole it off some dork I beat up when I was close to the village wall," Naruto answered with a shrug. She took the wooden mask and slid it on. "Why?"

The painted cat face really didn't do her (him?) justice.

"Oh, no reason."

* * *

"Hold up!" Kakashi suddenly ordered. Ino stopped instantly behind him and peered around in the woods, looking for the threat. They were less than half a mile from Konoha, so she didn't really think there'd be much danger this close to home. Still, it paid to be careful, even on home turf.

"What is it?" She muttered to him, keeping her voice low.

"I heard something. Over there," The copy-nin said as he gestured to the bushes on their right. He made a hand sign for the genin to go up and over, while he'd head straight through. He held up two fingers, then dropped one a half-second later. Ino tensed and the instant the second finger dropped, she was up and into the branches overhead.

Kakashi smoothly moved through the brush, a kunai already drawn in each hand. He passed through without a sound and caught a glimpse of color on the other side. He lunged, bringing his kunai to bear as he prepared to lay open another ninja's throat-

…And screeched to a halt at the odd spectacle in front to him.

Hmm, it wasn't everyday he saw an ANBU (identified by his arm tattoo) tied up with thirty pounds of rope, hanging upside-down from a tree, and wearing nothing but his underwear.

Ino landed silently on the other side of the bound man, with her normally sharp features scrunched up at the bizarre sight. Kakashi made a slight gesture, to which the genin gave a shake of her head. The copy-ninja relaxed with the knowledge that there were no enemy nins about. He walked towards the man and sheathed one kunai. Casually, he slashed the rope, allowing the nin to drop to the ground.

"Here, let me get that for you," Kakashi said as he yanked the rope away from the man's mouth.

"I quit! I can't take it anymore! Keep the high pay! It's not worth it!" The ANBU said before he degenerated into senseless sobbing.

"Err…Okay, you go ahead and do that. Ino-chan?" The Copy-ninja said as he inclined his head towards the man. The genin frowned a bit and her eyes turned teal for several moments.

"I can't make any sense of his thoughts. He's having a mental breakdown or something, but it's not anything dangerous," Ino replied with a shake of her head after a couple moments.

Both Leaf-nins paused and stared at the man as he mumbled something about 'Sandals of Doom' and 'Schoolteachers from Hell.'

"Uh…Yeah. We'll leave him tied up till we drop him off at the ER. Maybe they can sedate him or something," Kakashi calmly said as he stood upright and put his last kunai away. Ino's eyes turned blue again as she leaned down and hauled the ANBU upright.

"You want to take him or should I?" She calmly asked, keeping the hysterical Leaf-nin steady on his feet.

"I'll take him. The hospital is on the way to the Tower anyways and I can ask if Tsunade-sama is about while I'm there. Someone's probably impersonating an ANBU, so she should know about it immediately. You can do whatever you like for tonight. We'll meet up tomorrow at the mission center," Kakashi said as he reached over and hefted the man up across his shoulder. He gave a two fingered wave and took off through the trees, presumably to the hospital.

Ino stared after her sensei for a moment. Why did this situation feel so odd, yet familiar in a way? It shouldn't be familiar, considering weird shit didn't happen too often around here. Not since Naruto left anyways. She frowned slightly. What was it she had said that one time?

_**You could always tell when Naruto was in town…**_

"…Haha. Yeah, right. If he was going to come back, then he'd wait till the…Oh shit…" The genin trailed off as she dug out her mission statement and looked at the date. April 21. She quickly tallied up the days that had passed on her fingers. Three days travel, two days spying, one day reporting, and four days return trip. Ten days. Today was the first of May.

He'd promised to come back today.

Where could she find him if he was back? A single B Class missing-nin couldn't just wander about anywhere he damn well pleased in the village. Well, unless he got his status altered and was reinstated. But how would he…The Hokage. He'd have to see Tsunade-sama first. She knew from both rumors and Shizune that the two of them were really close. At the very least the Fifth let Naruto get away with crap that even the Third hadn't tolerated. She might let him off the hook. So where would he go after that?

Ino cursed. She had no idea what Naruto liked to do in his free time. All she really knew about him was that he was determined and hyper. And he had an odd obsession with Hokages. Hmm, maybe Iruka-sensei would know. But she shouldn't get the man's hopes up, just in case the fox-boy wasn't back. Those two were really close to each other. In fact, when they were in the academy, Naruto was always begging their teacher to take him out for ramen after class.

Wait… _Ramen_. Naruto was obsessed with ramen, almost as badly as becoming Hokage. Sakura had complained about it several times, now that she thought about it. Ino had no idea _why_ the blonde boy was obsessed with the stuff, but there were certainly weirder habits one could have. The girl mentally shuddered at the thought of Naruto with a blonde bowl-cut and bushy eyebrows.

Some days one could only stop and thank the Kami. Fate could have taken a _far_ more terrifying path.

Ino sighed. Well, what the hell should she do now? There were dozens of ramen bars in Konoha and she had no idea where Naruto's favorite was. Hell, she didn't even know where he _lived_, let alone his usual haunts. Hmm, she could either go searching across the city or find and ask Iruka-sensei. Of course, the chuunin would be suspicious if she asked directly and she didn't want to get her former teacher's hopes up in case Naruto was dea…Wasn't here. That meant she'd have to go on a wild goose chase across the village. Her Bloodline would help normally, but she'd never sensed Naruto's thoughts before and Konoha was a pretty big place. Too many minds would foul up her senses.

'Well, no time to get started like the present,' The genin thought in annoyance as she leapt into the trees and headed for the village walls.

Damn. That blonde idiot had better be worth the trouble.

* * *

"Alright, I locked it, so you're safe to change back," Tsunade said as she secured the latch on the door. Naruto sighed in relief as she pulled off her ANBU outfit.

"Finally. I hate being stuck in a shift," The kitsune grumbled. She grit her teeth as her flesh rippled and returned to its original state. The now male teen cracked his neck from side to side, making sure all the bones were in place. He shook himself all over, like a canine, and looked over at the Hokage curiously. "Now what?"

"Hop up there," Tsunade ordered as she walked over to the counters. Naruto glanced at the medical examination bed and shrugged. He calmly sat on it, the paper covering making a crinkly sound as he relaxed his weight. He idly glanced about the doctor's room. Though he'd never seen one to know the difference, it was all pretty standard stuff. Weird medical machines, counters and cabinets and jars full of odd things, and the ever present anatomy posters stuck to the walls. He looked over at the Fifth as she secured a blank medical file to a clipboard and started jotting down some info.

"What're you doing, Baa-chan?" The half-demon asked curiously.

"Starting a doctor's file for you. You've never visited one before and there are only three reports of you ever going to the hospital. It wasn't enough to really document thoroughly, so they never started one for you," Tsunade replied as she filled out the standard patient information. She paused at the next of kin space, then shrugged and put herself and Iruka. She hesitated, then grudgingly added Jiraiya. Pervert though he may be, no one looked out for the blonde like he did. She glanced back and asked, "I'm going to be your primary physician with Shizune as the secondary. That alright with you?"

"Uh…Whatever you think is best," Naruto replied, having no idea what to do as far as doctors went. For obvious reasons, the Kyuubi would be little help either. "Why do you want a file though? Not to whine or anything, but it's not like any doctors would treat me besides you and Shizune-chan anyways."

"I know. I'm classifying this when I'm done and sealing it in my private records. If anything happens to me, then Shizune will take over as your physician. She'll know what to expect with you after she reads this. It'll also help me keep track of all the changes the Kyuubi made to you," The Hokage replied as she finished filling the form out. She didn't bother with liabilities or anything. She had more than enough money to pay for any of his medical costs.

"Err, okay, but I doubt I'll ever need a check-up with my healing factor. Besides, healing jutsu doesn't really work on me anyways," Naruto casually responded.

"What?" Tsunade asked as she turned around and stared the boy. "What're you talking about?"

"I started calling it the Devil's Due awhile back. Thought it fit. There's so much demon chakra in my system now after the merging that it interferes with any healing jutsu. The chakra heals me even as it prevents outside healing. Gaara has the same problem when he uses Shukaku's power," The kitsune explained with a slight shrug.

"That's…very bad. Is there anyway around it?" The Hokage asked as her jaw dropped slightly. Damn, it had never occurred to her that the teen's demon chakra might have a negative side in a form like this.

"Well, if I exhausted all or most of my demon chakra, then they'd work on me. But really, Baa-chan, don't worry about it. I don't need any medics poking at me," Naruto said with a slight half-grin.

"What do you mean? You're healing factor is good, but it's not that good," Tsunade replied with a skeptical frown.

"_Was_," The kitsune said. At the Fifth's look, he pointed at the counter and asked, "Hand me a scalpel, will you?"

Tsunade gave the teen an odd look, then complied. As she handed the tool to Naruto, the blonde grinned and undid the bandages around his left arm.

"Watch," He said. Then, to the Hokage's total surprise, he drove the blade deep into his palm and ran it down his forearm to the elbow. A faint wince was his only reaction to the injury. Blood immediately ran out of the wound and onto the examination bed.

"What the hell are you-" Tsunade began as she started to rush forward. She stopped when the boy held up his unharmed hand.

"I said watch. Trust me; it's fine," Naruto replied as he held his arm out for inspection. Tsunade didn't understand what she was supposed to be looking for until she realized that the wound had already stopped bleeding. She watched in amazement as the kitsune ran his fingers along the blood trail, wiping it away and revealing perfectly unbroken skin. He idly flicked his hand, sending the collected blood to the floor with a splat. "See? It takes a lot to slow me down."

"Amazing," The Hokage muttered as she grabbed her clipboard and wrote down what she had seen. "That couldn't have been more than ten seconds to heal a wound about half an inch deep and over a foot long."

"I also clean dishes and chop vegetables at three different speed settings," The blonde teen said with a wink. At the Fifth's blank stare, he sighed and said, "Well, I suppose I should thank the Kami you haven't experienced the horror of infomercials."

"What're…Never mind," Tsunade said with a shake of her head. She turned her attention back to the open file on her lap. "Any other side-effects of this Devil's Due?"

"I can't receive or perform healing jutsu as long as there's as much or more demon chakra than human chakra inside me," Naruto droned as though he were reading off stereo instructions. There was a slight hint of annoyance pervading his otherwise bland tone.

"Really? You can't perform medical jutsu either?" The Fifth asked as she looked up from the notes she was writing down.

"No and it really pisses me off considering I finally have the chakra control for the lower level ones. I did a big favor for a medic-nin I ran into awhile back in exchange for some basic training in healing. Turned out I wasted my time. The strongest medical skill I can use is a mid-level diagnostic jutsu. Aside from that, the only other thing I can do is first aid," The kitsune grumbled, the frustration obvious in his voice.

"Your chakra control is that good?" Tsunade asked in disbelief. Naruto had some plusses as a ninja, but fine control over his energy usage was not one of them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Kakashi, Jiraiya, and even that weird special jounin Ebisu had each commented at one time or another about the boy's terrible control. Kyuubi's presence had downsides, it seemed.

"Yeah, but believe me, it took a _lot_ of training. I've worked my ass off the last eight months," Naruto answered matter-of-factly.

"Hmm, tell me about it later. For right now, I want to see all the seals you have and what they do," The Hokage said as she finished jotting her notes down on the Devil's Due.

"Alright, but you asked for it," The half-demon reluctantly said as he took off his vest and t-shirt. He had apparently bandaged every part of his body, even under his clothes. He found the end of the gauze strips and began the tedious task of unwinding them from his chest and arms. Tsunade watched, her eyes slowly growing wider as more and more of the teen's skin was revealed. When his entire torso was revealed and the cotton hanging loosely from his waist, the Fifth could do little more than stare.

"Well, what do you think?" Naruto asked as Tsunade slowly got up and circled him somewhat to take in all the exposed markings. The boy had a seal on his back, his upper right arm, his inner left forearm, two on each side of his upper chest, and a tattoo-like marking of a shattered spiral on his abdomen that could only have been part of the original seal the Yondaime had used. It didn't escape her notice that all the physical evidence of the attack one year ago was completely gone as if it had never occurred.

"I think you look like you were kidnapped and vandalized by a mad tattoo artist," The Hokage dryly remarked as she reached out and traced the seals on the kitsune's upper right arm. A glimmer of green caught the corner of her eye. The Fifth smiled a little when she noticed it was her old necklace hanging around the boy's neck. He was obviously protective of it if he hid it underneath his bandages.

She sighed and said, "Alright, I'll sketch them and you tell me what they do, okay?"

"If you want," The blonde teen replied with a shrug. He honestly didn't care much about the issue.

"Let's see…We'll start with the big one on your back, since it looks the most important," Tsunade said as she stepped behind him and began to draw the seal on her clipboard. It resembled a compass-star, albeit one that was black with red highlights marked across it. It ran from his neckline to the middle of his back and across each shoulder. It was pretty evil looking and the red colors would occasionally glow slightly. Like the other seals she'd encountered, it seemed to all be made up of tiny little jagged slashes and dots. It was definitely the same language as the others she demon seals encountered (if that was the real name for them.)

"That's the master seal. I call it the Heaven's Gate. The Kyuubi's chakra is constantly trying to merge completely with mine. This seal restrains it and the fox's memories, letting me absorb them over time rather than all at once," Naruto said as the Fifth quickly drew a general picture of the seal. "If I didn't block it all, the chakra would burn me alive and the memories would crush the human side of my personality."

"Interesting. So even with your Bloodline Unlimiter you still can't handle the Kyuubi's chakra," Tsunade asked as she put the finishing touches on the drawing.

"There's only so much a human body can handle at once, Baa-chan. The Kyuubi was powerful. _Very_ powerful. I've only absorbed a sliver of its full power and even that small bit has made me over twice as strong as I used to be," The blonde teen answered the Hokage. He waited patiently for her to finish scribbling down her notes.

"Not really surprising, in all honesty. Not even Yondaime and Gamabunta-sama could do more than lightly wound the fox and they were the strongest pair this land has seen for close to a century," The Fifth muttered, mostly to herself as she finished writing. As she was staring at the seal on Naruto's back, she noticed something odd.

"What are these for?" She asked as she traced one of the thin, black and red lines that extended from the large seal and out across his body.

"I don't call it the master seal just because it holds all the power. It also controls all the other seals," Naruto commented. "Some of the seals need constant demon chakra and since I have a large reserve I can't directly use, I just connected them all to the Gate of Heaven. Bam, they get all the juice they'll ever need and I don't die in five minutes from chakra exhaustion. The master seal also rejects any other seal that touches my skin. I have to carefully customize any new seals match it perfectly. It reacts to foreign seals…painfully. Maybe even lethally. Heh, old Snake-Freak will get a nasty surprise if he ever tries to give me one of his lame Curse Seals."

"Violently rejects any foreign seals connecting to it…" Tsunade said as she wrote the words down. She glanced up and wryly remarked, "We can only hope he tries then. Next seal?"

"The Mind's Eye," The kitsune answered, while reaching up and parting the hair on the back of his head. Tsunade could barely make out the dark and red lines through the thick, blonde fuzz.

"I can't see enough to draw it, so just tell me what it does," The Hokage ordered as she walked back around and sat on the standard rolling stool that was present in all doctor's offices.

"It let's me search through the Kyuubi's memories like they're one big library," Naruto responded. "Like I said earlier, my mind can't handle seven hundred thousand years of memory all at once. That's why I don't know the reason for the Kyuubi's attack on Konoha. This seal let's me search through and pick out individual memories. It also merges them with my mind once I'm done re-experiencing them, so I'm slowly absorbing it all over time. It also has a really annoying function that the fox put in without telling me.

"To make sure our personalities were balanced, the Kyuubi set up thousands of memories to be absorbed immediately. It also set up hundreds of thousands more with little triggers linked to them. If I see or hear something familiar enough to trigger one of those, it immediately sets off the memory and forces me to experience it right then and there. I blank out for a few seconds and can't react to anything. It's annoying and kind of dangerous, 'cause it leaves me open to attack."

"Wait, that's what you did in my office. I said something that set off your memory?" Tsunade said, as she glanced up from the open file.

"Yeah. It was just some weird memory of a crazy spirit Kyuubi used to know," The kitsune replied, dismissing it with a shrug.

"Oh, I see. Well, if the distractions haven't gotten you killed in a year, then I guess I shouldn't worry too much about it," The Godaime said. "So tell me about your other seals. What's that weird one on your arm?"

"This? Hell's Key," Naruto said, as he moved his left arm so the underside could be seen easier. On the inner forearm, just below the elbow, was a large, one-lined spiral seal. Looking closer, Tsunade noticed that it too was made up of small jagged marks. The spiral was entirely made out of red dots, though she noticed that the three outermost marks were blue-white and the five innermost marks were black.

"Each red dot represents one hundredth the Kyuubi's total chakra," The half-demon remarked, anticipating the Fifth's question before she voiced it. "The three blue ones show how much of the fox's chakra I've absorbed. That's basically what this seal does. Activating it releases the lock for one unit of the Kyuubi's chakra, letting it merge with me. That's how I absorb its chakra over time."

"And the five dark marks?" Tsunade asked, briefly halting her sketching to poke the center of the seal with her finger.

"Remember the effects of the Yondaime's seal?" Naruto rhetorically asked. "Those five marks represent the part of the fox that's been permanently destroyed. That demon chakra is gone for good."

"Oh, okay," The Hokage muttered as she jotted down her notes on it. "Next?"

"Err, I guess the Flesh Burn," The kitsune said. He pointed at a seal on the outside of his upper right arm. It looked vaguely like three wavy 'S' lines connected at their ends. It was almost like a distorted ANBU tattoo.

"_Flesh burn?_" Tsunade repeated in a sharp tone.

"No, no, relax. It's not as serious as it sounds," Naruto said, holding his hands up in a placating manner. As the Hokage calmed her medical and maternal instincts, he continued, "The cultists…I mean, the Akatsuki were tracking me using demon seals. It's normally kind of tricky to track someone using the seals of any kind, but if they ever got a sample of my blood they could narrow my location down within a couple meters. There are also other, nastier things that can be done with a part-demon's blood, so I made this seal to destroy anything that leaves my body whenever I get injured. Any blood or body part that gets separated from me for more than a few minutes destroys itself with the leftover chakra still inside it."

Tsunade stared at him for a moment, then glanced down at the floor. Sure enough, the spot where the teen had flicked the blood off his hands earlier held nothing but a black soot mark. Curious, the Hokage grabbed a paper towel and ran it through the black grit. It wiped away easily, being nothing more than a fine, dark silt. She examined the smear on the towel for a moment, before crumpling it up and pitching it in the trash.

"Unsettling, but creative. So the Akatsuki can use demon seals too?" The Fifth questioned, her brown eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, though I don't know how," The teen said with a frown.

"Tell me about them," Tsunade ordered, setting her file aside for the moment.

"Alright," Naruto responded as he leaned back slightly. "Tenma Fuu are the demonic version of our seals. Ours mold and change the flow of chakra to change the properties of something, like a human or an object. Demon seals, though, work by bending or breaking the laws of reality through the use of chaos. They're _extremely_ unstable and dangerous to use, even if they're crafted by a master. Only a very old and intelligent demon can make Tenma Fuu safely. Even then it takes them a great deal of time to construct them. On the plus side, by using chaos they can do damn near anything. Of course, on the downside they err…can do damn near anything, which is why they're so dangerous in the hands of an amateur.

"As for how the Akatsuki can use them, the only thing I can guess is that they have help from some demon faction. Kyuubi suspected as much and that was one of the reasons behind the fusion. I don't know how many seals they've given the cloak-freaks, but I definitely say it's a very bad thing that Akatsuki has their help. The only way a human can even use a demon seal is by having demon lineage to begin with, by signing a blood contract with one, or by harboring one in their bodies. None of those are good things, especially the last two. A contract opens up the human to demonic corruption and I think you can guess the results of another demon-vessel running around."

"No kidding," Tsunade replied. She stared at the odd seals on Naruto's chest for a moment, before commenting, "Jiraiya reported a few months ago that he found a cabin in southwestern Fire Country that had strange markings similar to the demon seals we've encountered so far. The seals were everywhere. It looked like some sort of brutal ritual had been performed. Did you have anything to do with it?"

"Nope. This is the first time I've been in our territory since I left a year ago," The kitsune said with a firm shake of his head. "I can only guess one of the cloak-freaks were up to something. It was probably Tsurugi. He may have wandered north from Wind Country after I tangled with him. We already know that he can use demons seals, though whether it's through a contract or lineage I have no idea."

"Right. If he was a vessel, they would have used him for whatever plans they have by now," The Hokage said. Her face grew thoughtful as she asked the teen, "Tell me, is there any chance that it could have been something else? I know it was demon seals used because they're the same language as yours and the others we've seen, but could they have been used for a benign reason?"

"Not a chance," Naruto confidently replied. "Only a powerful demon lord can make seals advanced enough to be used in a ritual and there's only one lord that wouldn't harm Konoha: me. Demons don't pass out their private secrets as bait like the snake-freak does. If there are seals of that caliber being used, then it was for a damn serious reason that probably means something bad for the Leaf. I can't think of a single good reason for a normal person to use demon seals."

"Good, that just confirms what I've been considering ever since I saw that weird clone of yours," Tsunade firmly stated, as though she'd been expecting that answer. "I'm making a law that bans all use of demonic seals or attempts to learn them, for any reason whatsoever. From now on, all demon seals are considered S Rank kin-jutsu and illegal. Use of them will result in being immediately declared a missing-nin of appropriate rank and hunter-nins will be dispatched. I won't release the details of the Tenma Fuu to anyone, but bizarre seals will be investigated by Jiraiya, myself, or you…assuming you've returned to become an active Leaf-nin again."

"If you'll let me, Baa-chan," Naruto quickly replied.

"I'll have to get the mess cleared up with Council first, but I have no problem with you returning to duty. You'll only be a genin, but you would still be one anyways had the trip with Jiraiya worked out," The Godaime said, dismissing the rank issue with a nonchalant shrug. "Anyways, as long as you're an active nin of Konoha, I'll allow you a special exemption from the demon seal ban."

"Really? You'd trust me that much?" The kitsune said, with a hint of surprise in his incandescent eyes.

"Do I have any serious reason not to? It'd be to our advantage to have someone on our side that can safely make and use these things. The new law is because I just don't want power hungry idiots running around our country doing errands for demon lords," Tsunade dryly answered. At the teen's hesitant look, she sighed and continued, "I trust you Naruto. Even if you are part demon, you're still the boy I…You're still my little brother. I know you won't misuse the power or privileges granted to you."

"I…Thank you," Naruto quietly said, his face falling forward a bit. After a moment, he looked up at the Fifth and said, "I'm not Naruto, Tsunade. Not exactly. Even so, you're still very important to me. I promise I won't betray you. On my honor as everything I am."

"That's good enough for me," Tsunade replied with a small smile. It took on a wicked edge as she said, "But just because you're hundreds of thousands of years old doesn't mean you aren't an ignorant little upstart that's always getting into trouble."

"And just because you're the Godaime Hokage doesn't mean you aren't a washed up old wench with a chronic gambling addiction," Naruto evenly replied with a similar smirk on his face.

"Brat."

"Hag."

They gave each other similar smiles for a moment, just happy to be back in each other's presence again. Soon though, the sap grew too much for their naturally tempestuous personalities and they moved on to what they'd been doing earlier.

"So, these two seals are it?" Tsunade asked, as she gestured to the boy's still exposed chest.

"Yep, though they're nothing special," Naruto replied. He pointed to the one on the right side of his chest (that looked oddly like a gothic wagon wheel of some sort) and said, "Gravity Force. I use it to make a gravity field across my entire body. Like training with weights, but much more advanced and efficient. Its force level is adjustable and easy to turn off if I need the freedom of movement in a fight, so it's good for training and field use. I don't even notice I have it on anymore."

"…Lee-kun would ask for your hand in marriage if you would make that seal for him," Tsunade deadpanned the first thing that came to her mind.

Naruto didn't respond, aside from shuddering and muttering something about caterpillars.

"Err, right. And the other one?" The Hokage asked, pointing at the seal on the left side of the teen's chest that resembled a streamlined pinwheel.

"Oh, Spirit Bind," Naruto answered, shaking himself out of his bushy eyebrow induced daze. "It restrains how much chakra I can use, forcing me to 'push' harder every time I use a jutsu. It's kind of like kinking a hose part of the way. It also randomly adds 'ripples' in my chakra flow, so I have to constantly adjust to stabilize it. It's _great_ at building chakra control, though the first couple of months with it on are hell. And since I have a gravity seal on, I have to constantly use chakra as a buffer to keep myself from breaking the floor or chairs and stuff. With these two seals I'm always increasing my reserves and practicing my chakra control, even if I'm just wandering around. It's hard, but I need to do it so I can toughen my body and inner coils up enough for the next chunk of demon chakra I absorb."

"…Huh. I've finally met someone who does rougher training than Gai. Guess I owe Jiraiya that 50 ryo," Tsunade said, staring at the teen with a bit of a disbelieving expression.

"You don't know the half of it…" Naruto muttered, getting a far of look in his eyes.

"What're you talking about?" The Hokage asked, slightly worried she had triggered one of the Kyuubi's memories.

"Oh, nothing much. I've just spent the last seven months being trained by a madman. If Gai knew about this psycho, he'd defect from Konoha immediately and go start a cult in his honor," The kitsune grumbled with an indignant look on his face.

"Who're you talking about?" Tsunade asked, both puzzled and alarmed that there existed a man with a stronger work ethic than Maito Gai.

"Only the blasted Hyougakage of the Hidden Village of Ice."

* * *

Far away, a grizzled looking white-haired man in his mid-fifties sneezed across some important documents on his desk. He glanced out his frost covered window of his office and scowled slightly.

"Blasted fox-brat. Quit gossiping about me!"

* * *

"Glacier Shadow? Where the hell is Glacier Country? I've never heard of either it or that Hidden Village and we've never encountered Ice-nins before," Tsunade stated, with a puzzled frown.

"Not surprising. They keep to themselves for the most part. The only service they do outside their village is hunting missing-nins. Aside from that, they just hang out in their village training constantly," Naruto casually replied. "When I was in Star Country, I heard about them from an antique dealer whose sister married an Ice-nin. He wasn't allowed to visit her because their Hidden Village really is hidden, but she occasionally came to visit him in the Hidden Village of Night. From her, he got the general idea that the Ice Village was way up in a really high mountain valley. Rumor has it that the nins there are so strong from all the training they do that their genin are a match for most other villages' chuunin. I decided to check it out and I managed to find them after a week and a half of rock climbing and hiking across ice shelves."

"And they just let you in?" The Fifth asked with a raised eyebrow. Ninja villages weren't known for their hospitality towards outsiders.

"Actually, they took me before the Hyougakage right off the bat. Said I was the first outsider to find the village on his own in over a hundred and sixty years. They were pretty impressed that I pulled it off, even when they found out my healing factor was what kept me alive long enough to find them," The kitsune replied with a small embarrassed, yet proud shrug. "I told their Kage I was looking for a good place to train and asked if he'd let me hang out there for awhile. Err, unfortunately they don't trust people from other villages much, so I had to pass a bunch of crazy tests to prove I was worth it. His first one was pitting me against his granddaughter in a sparring match."

Naruto fixed Tsunade with a sharp look and said in a serious voice, "Do you have any idea what it's like to be kicked in the crotch with a leg covered in a freezing jutsu?"

The Hokage winced and asked, "_Ouch_. No, but I can imagine it hurt like absolute hell. How's uh…_everything_ down there?"

"Oh," The teen said, a slight reddish tinge appeared in his whisker-marked cheeks. "Uh, fine actually. It only took about twenty seconds or so to heal the bruising and frostbite. I got her back by setting her butt on fire when she was walking away. Man, was she surprised."

"Ah, young love," Tsunade said with a vicious smirk.

Naruto snorted and replied, "Pfft, yeah right. We were at each other's throats most of the time I was there. It got worse when I passed the Hyougakage's tests and he started training me personally. I can't imagine _why_ that girl would be upset at missing out on that man's torture. Shimoyake Maruishi is more sadistic than even that creepy Ibiki guy. No matter what anybody else says, I _know_ it."

"What kind of training did he have you do?" The Fifth asked as she settled onto her stool. It was always interesting to hear about other Village's training techniques.

"Well, he started me on snow-walking for awhile. When I mastered that, he moved me up to ice-repulsion. 'Course, those were just his tests to see if I was worth his time to personally train. He had me doing missions for a few months after that, before he said I was good enough to learn his advanced stuff," The teen said, before he scowled darkly. "Or at least that's what he claims. Personally, I think he was just trying to see if I could survive his torture or not."

"You keep saying 'torture.' What training technique could be so bad?" Tsunade sarcastically asked.

Naruto rolled his eyes and grumbled, "One-legged mountain climbing."

The Hokage stared at him for ten full seconds before she said, "Excuse me?"

"I said, he had me do one-legged mountain climbing," The kitsune repeated, rubbing one of his temples. He always got a headache whenever he thought about that accursed training technique.

"…And how, pray tell, does one go about climbing a mountain with one leg?" Tsunade asked in the dry tone to end all dry tones.

"One ties one's arms behind one's back. Then one folds a leg and lashes it together at the ankle and upper thigh. Then one uses chakra to jump, stick, and jump again all the way up a mountain until one reaches the peak," Naruto replied in an equally dry tone. His expression turned a little thoughtful as he shrugged and said, "Or until one runs out of chakra and falls to their death, I suppose."

"That's the most suicidal thing I've ever heard off," The Fifth deadpanned.

"That's what the Glacier Council said when they banned it seventy years ago. Death rate got too high. They also said the man who invented it must have been legally insane," The half-demon replied.

"I have to say, I agree with them," Tsunade said as she crossed her arms.

"Well, the Hyougakage at the time didn't and when he trained Shimoyake as his successor, he had him do the same exercises," Naruto said. He grinned a little proudly and said, "According to the Hyougakage (the current one), he and I are the only people alive to have pulled it off successfully."

"I'll be damned. So what else happened after you mastered it?" The Godaime asked.

"Nothing too much. He just taught me a few jutsu, his personal tai-jutsu style, and uh…" Naruto trailed off a bit, looking a little embarrassed. "He, uh, asked me to succeed him as the Glacier Shadow when he retired. I _really_ impressed him. I got the feeling he thinks of me as the grandson he never had."

"He asked a _Leaf_-nin to take over his job!" Tsunade demanded incredulously.

"Well, actually I'm an Ice chuunin, so technically it's alright for him to ask. Though he said I'd have to swear total allegiance to the Ice village and uh…marry his granddaughter before I could take the position," The kitsune said with a dark blush covering his cheeks.

Tsunade was seriously torn between belting the teen for defecting (even temporarily) and laughing her ass off at the Hyougakage's offer. She decided to take pity on him, seeing as it was his first day back and he looked suitably embarrassed.

"You're an Ice-nin, huh? Well, I guess I should have expected it since you were wearing their forehead protector. Did you have to agree to anything before they allowed you to become one of their ninjas?" She asked is a serious tone. This was one tidbit of info the Council was _never_ to get a hold of.

"Nothing big. I just had to swear I'd never take any hostilities against them or betray their secrets. So you can't go telling people about their training techniques or the old man will yell at me and make me run up a mountain again. Okay?" Naruto begged. Since it wasn't the earsplitting whining he used to employ, it was actually kind of cute.

"Don't worry about it, Naruto. It's not like we have snow, ice, or large mountains around here anyways," Tsunade replied with a grin. "So, he just let you go, even after trying to name you his successor?"

"I love Glacier Country a lot and the people there treated me a lot better than I ever was here, but it's not my home. Even assuming I'd abandon you, Iruka-sensei, and the ero-sennin, I made a promise to become Hokage. That means a lot to me, even if only a handful of people believe I can pull it off. He said he understood, that it was important to keep promises, and that he wouldn't expect me to go back on my word, though he wasn't happy about me leaving," The kitsune answered with a bit a sad smile. His expression perked up a bit as he said, "Besides, Yajin-Kage made me promise him that if the Hokage thing didn't work out that I'd move back to the Ice Village permanently."

Tsunade snorted as she repressed her laughter.

"Your nickname for him is 'yeti-shadow?'" She asked with a grin. It seemed Naruto had yet to give up on his odd way of referring to people.

"Well, he sure as hell looks like one!" Naruto replied with the air of one continuing a long argument. The Fifth just laughed in response.

"I'll take your word for it," She remarked, reaching out and ruffling the teen's hair. As the medic poked at the squirming half-demon, her eyes happened to glance up at the clock on the wall. She let out a loud curse that made Naruto snicker. "Yuck it up, brat. We're going to have to cut this short. I have a meeting with the ANBU Commander in less than fifteen minutes and _somebody_ made me totally forget about it. I might as well bring up the news that you're back when I meet up with him."

The blonde ignored the jibe and replied, "So you want to meet up tomorrow or something? I can come by whenever since I'm not on any missions."

"That'll be fine. Actually, where are you going to stay? I'm pretty sure your apartment has evicted you by now. I wasn't able to keep up your social check going when you went missing-nin," Tsunade asked as she watched the kitsune rewrap himself in his bandages.

"No worries, Baa-chan. I wasn't planning on going back there anyways. Ero-sennin has all my important stuff anyways, assuming he didn't sell it for booze money," Naruto dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I have a plan for where I'm going to live, actually. I'll talk to you about it tomorrow whenever we meet up. Could you do me a favor and see if you can find any deeds for empty land plots?"

"...Yeah, I think so. You have anything you're looking for in particular?" The Godaime asked, confusion evident in her voice. Then again, Naruto tended to confuse her a lot.

"Anything that's fairly secluded and surrounded by trees. About an acre or two if you can manage it. Aside from that, I don't really care. Price isn't any problem, so whatever you think is best," The half-demon casually answered while he shrugged his t-shirt and vest on. He left his face unbound and pulled out his goggles (which she now noticed were thick and durably built, probably for cold weather, and tinted to prevent snow-blindness) from his pocket to hang them around his neck.

"I'll see what I can come up with," Tsunade said, still with a puzzled tone in her voice.

"Cool. Thanks, Baa-chan," Naruto said with a bright grin.

"…You know, you shouldn't call me that. I _am_ the Fifth after all," The Hokage said in an odd tone of voice.

"Err, sure I guess. But calling you Tsunade would be weird and I'm not going to butt-kiss you by calling you Hokage-sama constantly," The blonde teen replied.

"I know," Tsunade said after a couple moments of silence. A couple more moments passed before she said, "Call me Nee-chan. It's a definite improvement."

"…Alright…Nee-chan," Naruto slowly said, a small smile appearing on his face at how naturally the new nickname came out. "Is there anything else I need to know? Or do you need to ask me something else?"

"Not right now. It can all wait until tomor…Actually…Ah, shit, I haven't told you about the…Never mind. I'll deal with it tonight. Why don't you go find a hotel to stay at? If they refuse you service just shape-shift or something," The Hokage answered with a wave of her hand.

"Okay, I'll find one in a few hours," The kitsune replied.

"Why not go now? You should take it easy tonight," Tsunade said, while internally hoping that all the physical changes would make him unrecognizable to the ANBU and his old friends.

"Oh, I will Nee-chan, don't worry," Naruto reassured her. He unconsciously took on a dramatic pose.

"There's just one thing I have to do first."

* * *

Old Man Ichiraku stared despondently at the empty bar. Business had been terrible for the past couple years. He should have known it was a bad omen when the fox-kid took off. The blonde boy had been a huge part of their monthly income and they suffered without it. Worse, after the brat left, several fancier ramen bars had opened in different areas of Konoha and had drawn customers away. They still had a couple regulars, but they were becoming scarce. Even that schoolteacher that always hung out with the fox-kid had started coming less and less (though to be honest, he had mostly only come before for the Uzumaki boy.) If this kept up, they were going to go bankrupt in a month or two. They simply couldn't compete.

Ichiraku cursed and tore his apron off.

"Shut 'er down, Ayame-chan," He growled to his soft-featured and pretty daughter, who was adjusting the heat on some of the simmering woks. She glanced up in confusion at her father, who simply gestured at the empty bar. "No one's coming. It's almost 6:00. If people were going to show up for the dinner rush, then they'd have done it by now."

The waitress sighed and said, "Okay, Tousan."

The old man forced the depressed expression from his face at his daughter's downcast look.

"Cheer up, Ayame-chan. It'll work out," Ichiraku said reassuringly, even though they both knew he was lying.

"I guess…" Ayame said as she turned off the stove burners. "It's too bad Naruto-kun left. We could always count on him being in here eating all of our stock. Heehee, I remember the time he ate over a third of our ramen during the lunch rush and we had to shut down half a day early."

"_The_ time?" Ichiraku replied with a bit of a grin. "Ayame-chan, the little runt did that every other week! Or at least every time Umino-san got his paycheck."

"Heehee, I know," The waitress giggled. "I guess he did it so often it all bled into one memory. Still if he was here…"

"But he's not," Her father firmly replied. He sighed a bit, remembering how bad the boy had looked when they visited him a year ago at the hospital and the shocking announcement of his disappearance. "The kid has enough problems on his plate as it is. He probably has some serious business to take care of and I doubt he'll be back anytime soon."

"I know, Tousan," Ayame said with a tired and slightly worried look. Naruto really was a sweet kid, despite what the other villagers said. She didn't like the thought of him wandering off to Kami-knows-where, especially with the Sound going on a rampage. "He'll probably be disappointed when he comes back and finds out we've gone under."

""I suppose he will," Ichiraku said, leaning his back against the bar. He idly fiddled with a ladle as he continued, "Too bad though. Ichiraku Ramen is going bankrupt and nothing can be done about it."

"LIKE HELL IT WILL!"

Both Ichirakus whirled about to the entrance of the bar and stared dumbfounded at the person standing there.

Uzumaki Naruto stood just inside the flaps hanging from the roof. He looked different than he used to (Ayame noted with a blush), but there was no mistaking the boy…_teen_ that had practically lived at their food stand for years. Naruto had a dramatic stance to his footing and fire blazing in his incandescent eyes. He let out an earsplitting war-cry laced with demonic fury so loud that it cracked the windows of nearby shops and caused all the Inuzuka dogs to start howling over a mile away.

"Behold! I have returned!" He announced as he stepped further inside. "And Ichiraku Ramen goes out of business over my stone cold corpse!"

"Oh, Naruto-kun…" Ayame said with hearts in her eyes (that had previously been reserved only for the times when that mysterious ninja Kakashi dropped by.)

"I've eaten at one hundred and sixty-three ramen bars in the last two years. A hundred and sixty-three! And you know what they all had in common? They all sucked ass!" Naruto bellowed as he stepped up to the bar. Old man Ichiraku still had the frozen look on his face, even as the blonde teen continued, "Ichiraku Ramen is the best damn ramen stand on the face of this earth! I'd rather eat stale instant ramen than at any other bar on the planet."

"Y-you mean…?" Ayame started to ask, seeing as her father was still too shocked to speak.

Naruto reached into his shorts and pulled out a leather folding wallet with a brightly colored frog face imprinted on it. He pulled a thick wad of bills out (that didn't even dent the overall amount) and slammed it down on the counter.

"Give me all the ramen you have!" The kitsune roared into Ichiraku's face as he leaned halfway over the counter.

For several moments, there was silence as all three stared at each other. It was suddenly broken by a ladle clanging to the floor as the old man clenched his fist in the air in front of him. Tears ran in rivulets down his face.

"Today the Kami has blessed me," Ichiraku said in a joy-choked voice. He suddenly whirled and pointed at his daughter. "Ayame-chan! Light all the burners and get all the woks out! Our savior has come!"

Ayame nodded as she rushed about the back, gathering the ingredients and setting the woks to boil. Her father joined her and in a few minutes, he grabbed a bowl to ladle the salty noodles into.

"Screw that! Just give me the entire thing!" Naruto yelled as he waited impatiently at the counter, waving around a gigantic fork he'd pilfered from behind the counter.

Ichiraku didn't hesitate more than a moment before he grabbed the wok and set it down on an oven pad in front of the blonde teen. Naruto paused just long enough to tearfully mouth out 'arigato' to the heavens before he dove in.

"Isn't that heart warming?" Ayame sighed happily as she stood next to her father, watching the kitsune messily devour his meal with the viciousness of a…(oh just say it) demon.

Ichiraku just grinned.

Life was as it should be.

* * *

"Goddamn stupid blonde!" Ino growled as she stormed down the twilight streets of Konoha. She conveniently ignored her own hair color in her tirade. She was very annoyed at her lack of progress. The genin had searched high and low across virtually every ramen bar in the entire village, but had turned up nothing. She hadn't found any trace of Naruto nor had anyone seen him (and her mood wasn't improved when she saw the flinches on people's faces when she described the demon-vessel.)

"Ah, shit!" Ino cursed as she kicked a stone into a bush beside the road. She wandered over to a lamppost and leaned up against as she let out a tired sigh.

Why the hell was she even doing this? Naruto could be miles away or even dead for all she knew. Hell, he could have even eaten and gone home or decided to skip dinner or any number of things. This was ridiculous.

Ino let out a breath of air and started walking down a different side street, one that led off towards her home. The market sector was quiet this time of the evening and all the shops were either closed or closing. Even the food stands were shut down, which irritated her to no end as she'd somehow managed to forget to eat while searching _ramen_ stands. Now she was hungry and had to eat leftovers in the fridge when she got home to the flower shop.

Uhg, what a cruddy way to spend her evening.

As the genin walked down the dark street, she was surprised to notice that one small food stand was still open. The bright, yellow light from inside streamed out into the dark street in an inviting way. Feeling her stomach growl, Ino decided to grab something to eat there, whatever the place was. As she walked closer to the place, she suddenly felt _something_ surge through her Bloodline's senses. It was familiar, yet alien at the same time. It felt similar to the odd dreams she still occasionally had. Without really meaning to, the blonde teen silently made her way over to the entrance.

Several voices were chatting inside, though she didn't recognize any of them. One of them erupted into deep, loud laughter that struck the genin with that same peculiar sense of familiarity, though she still couldn't place it exactly. It wasn't the tone or the volume, it was just the way the person laughed. It was like he put everything he had into enjoying the moment.

Ino reached a hand out and gently parted one of the flaps to peer inside.

"…umped up and guess what she was doing? Walking away from me! And right after she kneed me in the crotch hard enough for my grandfather to feel it! I'm telling you, I saw red. So did she, come to think of it after what I did to her," The familiar voice was saying. The genin couldn't really see who it was, as her eyes hadn't adjusted and he had his back to her.

"So what did you do?" A light, feminine voice asked. It was obvious the loud person had her attention riveted.

"Haha, I did a Katon on her backside! She started hollering bloody murder and running around swatting her ass. She finally ran outside and slammed her butt in the snow. She walked funny for days after that," The deep voice responded with a smug chuckle.

"That's great, kid. Taught her a lesson. People shouldn't go around hitting other people in the jewels during sparring matches. Hell, there was this one time, way back before even Yondaime-sama was chosen, when I ran into this wasp of a woman who had the biggest pair of…Oh, hello, miss? Can I help you?" An older voice suddenly asked, startling Ino and bringing the other two speakers' attention on her.

"Uh, kind of," The genin replied as she stepped through the flaps entirely. "I was just wondering what kind of food you guys…serve…"

Ino trailed off as the person she'd been so curious about turned in his seat to look at her. Sticking her finger in a light socket wouldn't have shocked her as much as the boy sitting in front of her. Different eyes, different hair, slightly different face, and definitely a different build, but she still knew who this was.

"Uzumaki Naruto…'Bout time you came back," The genin finally said when she noticed three sets of eyes staring at her and waiting for her to say something. Damn, she finally meets him and now she has no real idea what to say. Not to mention she was giddy, nervous, and annoyed all at the same time.

It sucked being a teenager.

"…Ino-san," Naruto said in recognition after a couple moments of staring at her. She was somewhat surprised that he knew her name, considering they'd never truly spoken. "Yeah, I just got back earlier today. I'd ask you to join me, but unfortunately we've run out of ramen."

Ichiraku snorted while Ayame hid a giggle behind her hand. Ino's eyes slowly traced over to the large pile of empty woks sitting on the counter next to the blonde teen. She slowly raised an eyebrow and resisted the urge to whistle.

"No kidding. I heard you like ramen, but isn't that a little extreme?" She asked in her usual dry manner. Where the hell did this guy put all those noodles?

"Nothing is too extreme for Ichiraku ramen," Naruto said in a deadly serious tone. It passed in the next moment as he turned to Ichiraku and said, "Well, I'd better get going Oyaji. I need to find an inn or something to crash at before they all close. I'll see you tomorrow at lunch."

"Sure, kid. Take care of yourself," Old Man Ichiraku replied as he started gathering up the woks.

"Goodnight, Naruto-kun," Ayame said with a sweet smile. Ino wasn't sure why, but it set her teeth on edge.

"Night Ayame-chan, Oyaji," Naruto called over his shoulder as he moved past the genin and out into the night. Ino didn't hesitate to follow.

"So…" She said as she walked up to him. The dark street was deserted, even though it was only a little after 9:00. They stood in the middle of the road, with only the light from the ramen bar illuminating them. After a couple moments, even that disappeared. Without being able to see his face, she had no idea what he was thinking and was sorely tempted to use the active abilities of her Bloodline on him.

"So…Thanks for the flowers when I was in the hospital," Naruto said with a small half-grin, shifting his weight on to one foot as he peered at the girl. His night vision was much better now, so the genin's face stuck out sharply even in the dim starlight overhead. "The two I took with me fell apart after a couple weeks, but they were still nice."

"Oh…No problem. I thought you might like the color," Ino replied with an offhand shrug, even if she was pleased on the inside.

"Yep. Well, I gotta go find a place to stay. See you around Ino-san," The taller teen casually said as he turned and started walking down the street.

Ino stood in shock for a moment, watching the other blonde walk away just two minutes after they'd met. The way he carried himself spoke of an inner confidence gained through overcoming life's challenges and, she had to admit, it suited him well. And, of course, it made him all the more interesting. It was so different from Sasuke's arrogance and that just made it all the more appealing. Naruto's self-confidence reminded her strongly of someone else's.

Her own.

She'd worked her ass of this last year to prove to herself, her teacher, and everyone else that she was strong, skilled, and formidable. And she was. The only people who didn't respect Ino's abilities were either people who didn't know she existed or arrogant idiots. She wasn't insanely powerful like the Sannin nor did she know a thousand jutsu like Kakashi, but she got the job done and would likely take down any opponent with her even if she was beaten. But through it all, no matter how many jounin and elite she impressed, there was always one person at the back of her mind. The person who had sparked her powder keg and got her on the path she walked now. The person who had a direct influence on her Bloodline's awakening. The person who she wanted to respect her, more so than even Kakashi and Sakura.

And he was walking away from her.

"Hey, Uzumaki!" Ino yelled as she followed the teen and quickly caught up to him where he stopped in the street. Her mind raced as she came up with a plan in her head. "Did you speak to the Hokage today?"

"Yeah, I did," Naruto replied with a slightly suspicious look.

"Did she get rid of your missing-nin status?" She asked with a fake innocent voice. Reaching out with her Bloodline, she could tell he was growing more distrustful by the moment.

"No, but she said she'd be taking care of it soon," The kitsune slowly replied, not really sure what the girl was getting at. So it was common knowledge he was a missing-nin, huh? He'd have to watch his step in the future.

"Oh good," Ino said with a sunny smile. "That means I can go alert the ANBU to come and hunt you down."

"…Ooookaaay," Naruto slowly replied as he subtly slid into a relaxed fighting stance. Why the hell was this girl threatening him? He didn't really fear Konoha ANBU, which were a joke even in other Hidden Villages, but no one wants to fight a large crowd of elite shinobi.

Besides, Tsunade would have his ass if he crippled or killed a bunch of her Leaf-nins.

"And why would you do that?" The teen asked, trying to get a feel for this odd blonde girl.

"Oh, I won't, if that's what you're worried about," Ino replied with a smug grin, sensing the other shinobi's confusion. "Not as long as you do something for me."

"…And that would be?" Naruto prompted, deciding to play along if it meant avoiding trouble with Tsunade.

"Fight me. At Training Grounds 23. Right now," The genin answered in a sharp, no nonsense tone that contrasted with the giddy excitement she was feeling.

Naruto took a long good look at the girl in front of him. Her hair was short and hung stylishly at her neck. Her face was sharper and had lost a lot of its youthful roundness. She had grown a few inches, though she couldn't be called tall yet. From what he could see of her body, she had put on quite a bit of muscle tone while he was gone. Her dress had been shortened till it became a shirt (that left her nicely sculpted midriff exposed) and she had added a pair of shorts to her outfit in addition to the usual bandages. The male part of his brain also gleefully noted other _changes_ that had developed nicely since the last time he'd seen her.

Damn, he owed that clone money.

His first reaction was to say 'no,' as she didn't look at all like someone who could stand up to him. He took a second look though, as the Kyuubi knew from experience how appearances could be deceiving. He noticed the loose fighting stance she held herself in, the faint, yet long scar going across her stomach, and a few other faint scar lines on her arms and legs. Most of all, it was the look of eagerness in her eyes that made him think twice. It was the look of one skilled fighter hoping to fight another skilled fighter. She was fairly bouncing with energy at the thought of fighting him, though she was demonstrating great restraint over herself.

Alright, if she wanted to tangle with him that badly, then so be it.

"I knew you'd see it my way," Ino said in a sly voice, not waiting for him to voice it out loud. She grinned at the surprise she felt in Naruto's thoughts.

"…Fine, where-"

"-to?" The genin finished, her smirk growing more vicious at the annoyance she sensed from the kitsune. "Training Grounds 23 is a quarter mile past the southern edge of the wall. Follow me and try to keep up."

Ino was leaping up and onto a nearby rooftop before she even finished her sentence. She grinned as she took off running, feeling Naruto keeping pace several yards behind her.

Oh, she was going to enjoy this.

* * *

Naruto idly cracked his knuckles as he watched his opponent. Ino stood across the narrow clearing a good hundred feet away from him. Training Ground 23 seemed more like an orchard of some sort than any training zone he'd ever seen. Thick, old trees were spread out randomly from each other, forming brief empty rows that fighters could take advantage of. There was both cover and open space, making it good for sparring matches or mock ambushes.

Or for fighting sharp-tongued blondes that apparently had psychic abilities of some sort.

"Ready?" Ino called with a half-grin on her face.

"Whenever," Naruto lightly replied with a shrug. He took a casual stance from his tai style.

Ino rushed forward at him, drawing a kunai and charging in a straight line. The kitsune was instantly disappointed at the amateurish, straight forward attack. It would be pathetically easy to counter that move. A part of him became suspicious, however. He had seen someone attack like that before, though he couldn't recall who. He performed a low powered roundhouse at the girl's head, fully expecting it to connect.

Naruto was greatly surprised when the girl ducked under the blow like she had seen it coming and lashed him across the stomach with her blade. The kitsune immediately countered with a stronger punch to her face. Ino was already dodging by the time he had started the swing and stabbed him through the arm even as she ducked aside. Naruto's eye twitched at the pain and he automatically pivoted on one leg as he tried to knee her side. The girl bowed her body around the blow without even looking and lodged her blade in his leg as it passed by. The half-demon cursed in his mind and back flipped away from Ino using his good leg. In mid-air, he pulled the kunai out from where it was stuck behind his kneecap and landed with the weapon ready in his hand.

…Only to barely dodge a handful of shuriken. Ino was on him with another kunai even as he dodged away from her throwing stars and forced him to give ground under a steady assault of slashes and unarmed blows.

Naruto gritted his teeth in annoyance as he took yet another stab wound. His outfit was being ruined and he didn't want to draw attention to the seals on his skin if he could help it. He couldn't do much about it though, as no matter what he did Ino was one step ahead of him. If he dodged, she was already there slashing at him. If he attacked, she was already moving away and countering. It was like she knew the secrets of his tai style, which was impossible as only three living people on the planet had learnt it. This was almost as bad as the time he fought Sasuke, though at the very least his opponent was cute this time.

For some reason, Ino's assault redoubled as he thought that.

Naruto didn't really understand why, but the more she was winning, the more pissed off she got. Uhg, girls. Alright, if she wanted a fight she was going to get one. Surging extra chakra into his legs, the kitsune did a super-jump fifty feet backwards, feeling pretty confident she wouldn't be able to keep up. He landed in a crouch and easily dodged the group of kunai she was already sending at him. She didn't try to follow up the attack, for some reason. Naruto slowly stood up to his full height as he watched the girl. Calmly, he reached down to yank a shuriken out of his thigh and tossed the weapon aside. He shook himself a bit to get some of the loose blood off and pondered his next move.

Ino nearly screamed in frustration. She had stabbed Naruto at least forty times and he wasn't even slowing down. It hadn't escaped her notice that he more or less ignored all the injuries he received, no matter how incapacitating they should be. That knee trick should've had him hobbling from the slashed tendons, but he just shrugged it off like it was nothing. All the reports of the Kyuubi's healing factor had been grossly understated. She had burned out a chunk of her stamina with that assault and he wasn't even panting. At this rate, she was going to lose the fight simply because he could take this level of punishment all day without any problems.

What really ticked her off was that he knew it too and wasn't taking this fight seriously. He'd even had the gall to compare her to that asshole Sasuke! (The genin completely ignored the morality of reading someone else's mind as she worked herself into a rage.)

Goddammit, she is neither weak nor a traitor and to imply both, even in such a roundabout way, made her vision turn red.

"Shrug this one off, jackass!" Ino roared as she formed three familiar hand seals. A blaze of bluish energy crackled into existence around her right hand.

"CHIDORI!"

Naruto's semi-idle mind cleared and sharpened so fast, Ino felt like she'd been doused in a bucket of ice water. She nearly lost control of the jutsu from the sudden gear shift in the kitsune's psyche. The other teen was now analyzing every previous moment of their fight and calculating how best to counter her imminent attack. He was also considering the best way to go about breaking her arm to dispel the Chidori and the methods he was debating using put many hunter-nins to shame. He was a completely different fighter than he'd been moments ago. The genin had the feeling she'd just awoken sleeping giant. Oh crap. And she wanted to fight this thing?

Ino shook the thoughts from her head and narrowed her eyes. Yes, she did want to fight him. Hadn't she been the one complaining earlier this very day about the lack of challenging opponents?

With that, the girl mentally prepared a second jutsu and rushed at the other teen.

Naruto had snapped into serious mode the instant he saw the Chidori crackle to life and heard the familiar chirping sound. That explained everything odd he'd noticed about the fight. Everything about the girl screamed Kakashi's personal training. From the way she held her kunai, to her body movements bastardized from Lee's tai-jutsu, to the way she anticipated his movements with ease, it all held a link to the jounin. Leave it to Copy-Fucking-Ninja Kakashi to find another prodigy just like him. Having never truly fought Lee or Kakashi, the kitsune didn't know how to properly counter Ino's style. He quickly thought out a dozen different ways to break her arm, but discarded almost of them as useless. Well, maybe it was time to get serious.

Naruto sunk into a deep stance and prepared to counter Ino's imminent attack. When the girl smirked triumphantly, he instantly knew he'd made a mistake somehow in not trying to avoid it.

Ino grinned and powered her Bloodline up to full at the same time she made several one-handed seals with her left hand. The look on Naruto's face was priceless as several large, spiky vines ripped out of the ground and wrapped themselves around his legs and hands before he could move. He tried to pull free, but found he was held totally immobile. He wasn't too panicked to miss the fact that the vines had no scent for some reason. He glanced up at the genin fast approaching. Without his hands free, he had only one good option to slow the girl until he could break free of her jutsu.

Ino's grin faded as Naruto's blue eyes turned blood-red and grew dark slits. A surge of rage and hatred on a scale she'd felt only once before slammed straight into her mind. It was made worse by her mental connection to the kitsune. She felt her resolve shrinking and her baser instincts being toyed with. Terror grew in her and her pace faltered till she slowly came to a stop ten feet in front of the other blonde teen. In her growing panic, the genin tried to run away, though she found her body unable to move. She gritted her teeth as horror and fear swamped her senses, making her feel like she was being choked from the inside out.

And then it was just passing through her, barely affecting her thoughts.

Ino blinked, a sense of deja-vu hitting her. It was just like when the Kyuubi's Terror Wave hit Konoha a year ago. She was feeling the animal fear and it was swamping through her mind, but she felt strangely detached from it. The terror was there, but it wasn't _terrifying_ anymore. The genin grinned slightly in satisfaction as she eyed Naruto. So he could use the Kyuubi's instinct manipulation, huh? That must be handy in a fight. Crippling an opponent with mortal fear was an excellent way of creating an opportunity to end a fight quickly or to halt an enemy's attack.

Looking down at the Chidori still crackling in her hand, Ino's smile turned grim. Not in this fight, Uzumaki.

Naruto let out a foul curse in the fox's tongue as the girl shook off his terror and rushed at him again. Still, he had bought enough time to put his plan in motion. Summoning up the demon chakra he had gathered in the few seconds Ino had been stunned, he knelt slightly and unleashed it as his jumped straight up. He figured he was caught in some sort of illusion as he couldn't actually smell the vines. That being the case, he could break free by forcing his body enough in one direction. The gen-jutsu wouldn't be dispelled, but it didn't matter if his mind was being tricked or not as long as his body was flying upwards almost eighty feet in the air.

Ino stabbed with her Chidori towards Naruto's right thigh, as she only wanted to cripple, not kill him and he'd probably heal up from it eventually anyways. If he'd survived one to the chest two years ago, then he could easily survive one to the leg. She was greatly surprised when he disappeared right before her eyes. She managed to maintain her jutsu, though her unconnected jab caused her to stumble forward and nearly plow the ground with her chakra-enhanced hand. Quickly, the genin searched for her opponent's mind and found his thoughts coming from straight up. Her jaw dropped at the sheer height he'd managed to achieve in a single jump.

Naruto, for his part, wasn't nearly as pleased with his stunt. Going straight up broke him through the gen-jutsu, but now he'd just come right back down and would probably land right on top of that blasted Chidori. He didn't really know any jutsu could be directly used for changing direction while in mid-air, so there was little he could do but improvise. The kitsune grew a wicked fox-grin across his face at that thought.

He was _good_ at improvising.

A series of loud cracks accompanied the arrival of five kage bunshins in the branches of a nearby tree. One clone held its arms out and the other clones grabbed onto them, with two on each arm. The four bunshins swung backwards for a moment, then launched the clone forward and right into Naruto's path. The kitsune held out his arms and the kage bunshin grabbed his hands with its own. The clone's momentum kept it going forward and they spun in place for a second, before the bunshin released Naruto at the perfect moment. The kitsune was propelled a significant distance away. The blonde teen hit the ground in a perfect roll and smoothly rose into a fighting stance, as five high pitched popping sounds announced the shadow clones' disappearance.

All Ino could do was drop her jaw lower at the seamless acrobatic display.

"So he taught you Chidori, huh?" Naruto calmly commented, his mind analyzing the way Ino had fought up until now. "Kakashi would never have done that unless you had some sort of ability to read an opponent's moves before they make them. I should have guessed that from the start, seeing as how you perfectly evaded my fighting style. Care to enlighten the ignorant?"

Ino regained her composure and said, "I have a Bloodline Limit that gives me psychic abilities. It can do all sorts of things, from allowing me to sense when people are near to sensing lies to feeling people's emotions. By reading an opponent's surface thoughts, I can anticipate their actions in a fight."

"I don't fight through my surface thoughts. I fight mostly on instinct," The Kitsune replied as he narrowed his eyes.

"True, but you're always thinking even if you don't realize it. There are constant signals back and forth throughout the different levels of the brain, even if you're primarily using only one part of it. Your surface thoughts ripple and shift in response to instinctive actions as much as they do to actions you think out. Hatake and I spent a lot of time training me on how to recognize which signals are which and what they mean. The end result is I know what you're going to do almost before you do," The blonde girl stated matter-of-factly, her smug face reflecting the blue glow of the Chidori.

"No kidding? Well that makes you rather tricky to beat then," Naruto said with a slightly impressed look. Mastering such a complex way of reading an opponent's mind on the fly during a fight was no small feat. Ino, it seemed, was far more dangerous than he'd given her credit for. Oh well, people make mistakes for a reason. "So what else does that Bloodline of yours do?"

Ino grinned grew wicked as she said, "I'll give you a free demonstration."

Naruto tensed and grew ready to spring into motion in any direction. The blonde girl was making one-handed seals again, though they were totally different from the previous set. The kitsune's eyes widened as the world went dark around him. The forest, the stars, and, most importantly, Ino all vanished. He couldn't see anything. A jolt of tension hit him as he realized he couldn't hear anything either. The only reliable sense he had left was his sense of touch and the only thing he was going to feel was a whole lot of pain when that Chidori hit him. What the hell was all this anyways? She'd said it was part of her Bloodline, but how she was-

_It came aware in total darkness. No sight, no sound. Boiling heat surrounded it from every angle. It held no true form to speak of. It was little more than a ball of energy and thought. It extended a tendril of itself, only to find something solid obstructing its path. It surged outward on all sides, feeling the barrier block its every attempt to break free._

_Rage._

_Rage and blistering fury filled its thoughts. It wanted free. How **dare** something hold it back! Heat exploded around it as it seethed and writhed. The barrier softened and it took the opportunity to slam at the weakest point of its prison._

_The barrier cracked._

_It surged more and more of itself into the weak point, sliding into and through the breach. Countless layers and layers of the unknown substance were melted or pushed aside as it forced its way through. It finally broke into a large chamber full of a molten material. It flowed through the boiling liquid, trying to find a way out. Its movement must have agitated something, because the fluid began the churn and move in one direction, taking it along for the ride. It followed for some time, until it was accidentally swept down a side tunnel. The flow slowed and weakened the further it moved, until finally it had to move on its own power._

_It ended up in a small chamber and this one had no exit. It was trapped again._

_Freedom._

_It wanted **out**! Its rage reached new heights, causing the barrier around it to crack and crumple under the pressure of the raw energy unleashed. A large breach tore open above it and it surged through without hesitating. Keeping its rage boiling hot, it tore through the barriers with little effort until it finally broke through the last and final layer into clear, dark air._

_It tore itself free from the hard rock as magma geysered into the air all around it. In the background, a much larger eruption was occurring, blocking the stars out of the sky and making a hellish red glow that highlighted the surrounding region. It sagged forward into the red flow pouring down the mountainside, allowing the lava to drag it along. It began to solidify as it moved, though it still had no real form to speak of. When the lava flow finally ebbed and congealed, it was able to drag itself up along the banks and onto the scorched land beyond. It felt an instinctive, dark urge and reformed its body to match it as it leaned back to face the heavens._

_Under the red-cast sky, its molten flesh split and formed jaws as it screamed its fury to the worl-_

Naruto snapped back into himself, gasping in shock. He realized he was still inside Ino's gen-jutsu and he had no idea how much time had passed. These damn memories were going to get him killed someday. Grimly, he noted that it would probably be today if he didn't do something. How was he going to break free of the illusion? He didn't have much time, if any, before he was hit by the girl's attack. Alright, he couldn't see or hear so he was going to have to rely on feel. He closed his eyes in concentration and focused all his senses into the air currents around him. Damn it, this had better work.

_There!_

Ino hadn't noticed the change in Naruto's expression as she rushed at him. She again chose the teen's leg as her target, seeing no reason to deviate from her original plan. She was almost on him…almost…_Now!_

The genin stabbed her chakra enhanced hand forward, putting all her weight behind it. There was no way Naruto could dodge now.

Unfortunately for them both, he did.

At the last moment, the kitsune crouched and dodged backwards while bringing his hands up to grab Ino's wrist. The girl nearly had a heart-attack when she realized what her hand was going to hit now.

The sound of a loud, meaty impact and liquid splashing echoed throughout the deserted training grounds.

Ino stared in shock at her hand. Or rather, her forearm. Her hand was buried up to the wrist in Naruto's abdomen, with blood leaking out and running down her arm. She grimaced at the feel of slippery intestines around her fingers. Panic and anger flared in her. What the hell was she going to do now? She'd killed him, there was no way he could live through a gut wound. That idiot! Why'd he dodge right into the Chidori's path? Why the hell had she used the Chidori in the first place? Oh dammit, this was bad! How could she kill him when she was just trying to impress him?

A pained grunt broke through her thoughts.

Naruto grimaced, then glanced down at the girl's hand. He would've sighed in relief if it wouldn't have compounded the waves of agony he was already experiencing. He'd managed to catch the girl's arm and kept the blow from penetrating all the way through him. He was _not_ eager to attempt regenerating his spinal column. He'd gotten lucky. There was only one thing for the kitsune to do now. He locked his hands tighter on the genin. This was going to hurt like a _bitch_.

Ino could only watch in mounting horror as Naruto's hands tensed on her forearm and slowly pulled her hand out of his stomach. Her arm came free with a deep sucking sound and blood poured freely from the hole in the other teen. The kitsune let out a shaky breath of pain, before he narrowed his eyes in concentration, though they weren't focusing on anything in particular. As he didn't release his hold on her, Ino had a front row seat for the bizarre sight in front of her.

The wound was closing.

The blood flow stopped, torn intestinal tract bound itself back together, and muscle regrew to cover the whole mess right before her eyes. A sticky pink film developed on the muscle sheet, then thickened and paled into a layer of perfectly healthy skin. No more than a minute had passed and he was perfectly fine.

Un-fucking-believable. Grossly understated indeed.

Naruto slowly cracked his neck and tenderly flexed his new abdominal muscles before he let Ino go and stepped back a pace. The genin, for her part, was more than a little nauseated and awed by the display. To heal a mortal wound in moments was not an ability that could be taken lightly. Hell, it made no difference if she had connected her blow to his leg or not. It wouldn't have crippled him more than a minute. No wonder he wasn't worried about any of the injuries he'd taken during their fight. Leaving a lasting injury on Naruto was like trying to punch a hole through a pool of water. Any effect you achieved was gone in moments.

"So…free demonstration, huh?" Naruto dryly asked, breaking Ino out of her shock. She belatedly realized she was still staring at the exposed skin through the hole in his shirt. She looked up and met his wary, but amused eyes.

"Uh…Yeah. So…uh, what do you think?" The genin sheepishly asked, not having any real idea what to say in a situation like this. Should she apologize for putting a hole in his stomach?

Exactly how does one do that?

"Impressive. That would have killed almost anyone else. I take it you and Kakashi have been practicing. How'd you manage the one-handed seals?" The kitsune causally asked, acting for all the world like he hadn't been impaled moments ago.

"I can use those as long as they're making a gen-jutsu and I'm using my Bloodline at full power. And practice makes perfect, you know," Ino replied, allowing a small smirk to crawl up her face now that her leftover panic was fading away. "Including the one I just got back from, I've completed seventeen A Rank missions in the last six months."

"Not bad. Not bad at all," Naruto commented thoughtfully as he scratched his chin. That certainly explained the girl's high skill level. Combining Kakashi's training with lots of hard-core battle experience would make or break a shinobi. Ino obviously hadn't broken.

"Not bad? And you've done more?" The genin sharply asked, the feeling that he was looking down on her coming back. What the hell had he been doing as a missing-nin that was better than her list of missions?

"Err, yeah actually," The blonde answered with a small, proud smile. "Thirty-eight A Rank missions and eleven S Rank missions completed in the last seven months. Though it's not exactly fair, seeing as how almost all of those were assassination jobs and they go by fast, succeed or fail. Glacier Country doesn't like missing-nins very much. Glad they made an exception for me."

Ino barely restrained the urge to bug her eyes out comically. Good Kami, no wonder he wasn't fighting seriously! That was getting close to two assassinations a week! Did he say _S Rank_? And just where the hell was Glacier Country and why was he working for it?

"H-How…" The genin stuttered. She shook her head and tried a different question. "…So you were holding back?"

"Sort of. But to land a blow on me at all is impressive, Ino-san. Except for Lee or Neji, I wouldn't have expected anybody from our crowd to pull that off," Naruto replied with an odd glint in his eyes. He seemed to size Ino up and, even with her Bloodline, she couldn't clearly make out what he was thinking. He finally said, "Very impressive. I haven't been hurt once in the last five or six missions I've been on. I guess I owe that clone some money. It was right about you."

The kitsune turned and walked away into the darkness with only one last sentence floating back to his opponent.

"You _are_ interesting."

Ino let him walk away this time, seeing as she couldn't really keep fighting anyways as most of her stamina was gone. While she could win against a normal opponent with only twenty percent or so of her chakra left, it wouldn't do much against Naruto's level of endurance. She stood in the empty training area for some time after he left, sorting through the odd myriad of emotions in her. One finally rose up above the others and she smiled to herself when she felt it.

Pride.

So this was what it felt like to be acknowledged by someone you respect. Though as pleased as she was, she now had a higher goal to work towards. Anyone who thought she'd be satisfied with only Naruto's respect would be sorely disappointed. No, now she had an even loftier goal. The genin grinned a little bit as she leapt off into the night, heading towards her home, already planning on getting up early to bother her lazy sensei. It was time to ask Hatake about taking on an S Rank mission or two.

Yamanaka Ino was not going to be left behind.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**General:** Alright, it's up. Had some trouble getting this one out, but I think it turned out alright in the end. Let me know what you think of it.

On another note, to the (admittedly few) people who complained about me missing my deadline: people, quit it. I write fifty pages a _week_ and do all my own editing without the support of a beta. Virtually all other authors on this site update every one to two months with about twenty pages of material. I think a _day's_ lateness is excusable under the circumstances. I have my own life and, guess what, it _does_ take priority over a _fanfiction_ that I'm not making any money off of. To avoid further griping and me stressing about a self-imposed deadline, I'm no longer giving solid dates regarding the next update. I'll give a range of days that the next chapter will be released on, though there's always the chance I may miss it and be a little late again. To any complainers: tough. Write your own story and see how hard it is. To the readers who remained patient with me, thank you. I appreciate it.

Uhg, I hate to do this but I'm going to have to make a note about reviewers. Many people suggest different ideas for the story and while most are polite about it, some are already taking on a rather _insistent _edge in their responses. So, to avoid people bitching me out in the future because I ignored their suggestions, I'm repeating the same warning I gave in Chapter 4 (which most people apparently missed):

Please feel free to make any suggestion or criticism you like. Do _not_ take it personally if I completely ignore either.

I have two reasons for this, aside from the fact that I don't want to be bitched at. One, if I listened to every suggestion and opinion sent to me, then this story would turn into a mess of conflicting ideas. EX: Person A wants a character to be stronger, while Person B thinks that same character should die a horrible death, etc. I already have the plot and ideas for Foxhound laid out and I'm not going to deviate much from it unless I see an idea that blows my socks off. I also don't want somebody later saying "I gave you that idea! It was mine!"

That leads into my second reason, which is simple: this is my story and I want it to stay that way. I don't own the Naruto world, but I do own the right to make this however I want, as good or as bad as I want. If I write an idea you love, great. If I write one you hate, tough. Write a story better than mine if you hate it so much. While I love the feedback and the responses, in the end I'm writing this story because I love to write, not because reviewers love to read.

Alright, I'm not going to gripe and waste anymore time. Rant done. Warning given.

While I got roughly fifty to sixty comments on the cliffhanger at the end of Chap 5 (I was called 'bastard' at least ten times), no one answered my question about the calendar system Naruto uses. I'm going to ask it again here and if I still don't get any responses, then I'll assume no one knows and I'll be lazy and invent my own. It's no big deal, but I don't want to conflict with canon if I could avoid it. Alright, the question is: what year system does the Naruto manga use? I.E. 2XXX AD or 1244 AC or 738 PW, etc. Any responses are greatly appreciated, though don't feel obligated to reply.

Oh yeah, on the cliffhanger thing. Guys, come on. You haven't seen one before? Relaaaaaxxx. I'm not going to end the story on that kind of note.

**Jutsu: **There's a ton for this chapter, so I'll keep the descriptions brief.

**Ino's Advanced Bloodline** (Unranked) The Yamanaka family recessive Bloodline Limit. No known name for it.

Ino's Bloodline has several passive abilities (which cost no chakra) and active abilities (which all cost chakra.) Her passive abilities include being able to sense whether someone is lying or not, being able to sense hostility, being able to sense someone's presence nearby (though not the exact location), and sensing someone's surface emotions if she's in close proximity to them.

Active abilities include being able to anticipate an opponent's actions by reading 'ripples' in their surface thoughts that reflect action, whether instinctive or thought out (uses small amounts of chakra.) The ability to read someone's mind (chakra use depends on opponent's willpower.) The ability to hypnotically weaken an opponents mind and have them accept gen-jutsu more readily, thereby enhancing the illusion. This mind trap skill uses a large amount of chakra (roughly half a Chidori), but it's almost impossible to break out of unless the victim has some ability to instantly break a gen-jutsu (ie. Sharingan.)

Ino has not fully mastered her Bloodline. Not all the abilities have been discovered and the abilities she has aren't as powerful as they will be. Mental trauma of some sort seems to be the trigger to awakening this Bloodline, though nothing is truly known of its origins. The only physical change to the user when this Bloodline is active is that the eyes turn teal and glow faintly.

**Ino's Gen-jutsu** (Variety of Ranks) The Gen-jutsu Ino employs with her Bloodline Limit. Gen-jutsu. Multitude of one-handed seals.

Ino has a grab bag of various gen-jutsu she's picked up from scrolls and various jounins over the past year. Not all of them are named, as some are unique skills she and Kakashi have invented on their own. The gen-jutsu usually block one or more senses or immobilize an opponent in some way. When using her Bloodline at full power, Ino can perform these gen-jutsu with one-handed seals (leaving her other hand free for the Chidori.) The Blood Limit acts as both the catalyst and the extra focus needed to support the missing side of the seals. Ino's use of one-handed seals is a shortcut she and Kakashi developed specifically for her Bloodline; she can't use them in any other way.

The intensity of these gen-jutsu can be magnified with the use of Ino's Bloodline.

**Gishi no jutsu**(Fake Death) (B Rank) A jutsu that fakes death on every level except brain activity. Nin-jutsu. Six seals.

This skill fakes death by using subtle chakra usage to block certain opening point and nerve connections in the body. All voluntary and involuntary body activity halts, except for brain activity. The user can still use all five senses, but is completely paralyzed and cannot react to anything. The body's chakra is also cloaked while the jutsu is in place. The jutsu is released by a mental command and _only_ by a mental command (though resuscitation has a chance of working.) If the brain blacks out before the command is given, the user will die. This skill is extremely dangerous, as most people don't even realize they're passing out when it happens. This skill can also be performed and 'stored' for roughly thirty minutes (depends on chakra control) and can be activated with a mental command.

This jutsu that has roots in Gaara's False Sleep skill, Naruto's Non-Detection Field, and components of several other miscellaneous jutsu. It was created by Naruto when he was recovering from his ritual with Gaara. Both Naruto and Gaara have learned it and both have learned how to use their chakra reserves (demon and human) to extend their oxygen supply. Naruto's best time is about eight minutes before he passes out. Gaara, not having an extremely high metabolism, can go for about sixteen to eighteen minutes before he must release the jutsu.

**Touken** **Kouu **(Cold-Steel Rain) (Tsurugi's version is B Rank; normal is C Rank) A shower of metal slivers that cover an area of about thirty feet. Nin-jutsu. Four seals for standard version. No seals for Tsurugi's.

A simple move normally. A piece of steel is launched into the air and shattered, with the fragments raining down over a certain area. The power and speed is not much stronger than thrown senbon. Tsurugi modified this skill and when he performs it, the metal he uses doesn't shatter; it _explodes._ A simple modification, but it adds a great deal of power to the fragments. The force increase is at least as strong as a kunai thrown by a tai-jutsu specialist. The move is very difficult to completely dodge and even harder to survive.

**Devil's Due** - The negative effects demonic chakra has in a human body.

Demon chakra is unique in that it strengthens its source while trying to destroy everything else. Because of that, a human being cannot receive nor perform healing jutsu as long as there's more than a 1:4 ratio of demon chakra versus human chakra in their bodies. Even in low amounts, demon chakra can still interfere with healing jutsu. While this usually isn't a big deal to Naruto, it can be lethal to Gaara which is one of the reasons why he goes to great lengths to protect his body.

Note: Demon chakra normally isn't detrimental to the body's natural healing. It simply screws up outside healing.

**Kitsune Shape-Shifting** (Unranked) The shape-shifting ability the Kyuubi used that was inherited by Naruto.

Kyuubi learned how to alter and create real flesh bodies from the Trickster, Coyote. While Coyote's mastery of shape-shifting (or Skin Walking as he calls it) is far greater than Kyuubi's skill ever was, the fox was still a powerful shape-shifter. When Kyuubi merged with Naruto, the fusion inherited this ability.

Naruto can shape-shift at two levels: he can mimic somebody with the level of a henge (meaning sudden shock can dispel the shift) if he's only seen them and he can perfectly mimic their body if he's had skin to skin contact with them. He **CAN'T **learn Bloodlines nor does this give him any of the person's skills. Some skills become easier to perform in other bodies though. The shape-shift is very painful for Naruto and the faster he does it, the worse it hurts. He becomes more sensitive in his new body and can't take as much pain as he normally can, though he still has his accelerated healing. This ability does use some chakra, but not by a stamina freak's standards. There's no time limit on how long the shift lasts, though it becomes more and more uncomfortable over time.

**Terror Effect **(Kyuubi S Rank; Naruto B Rank) The terror effect of the Kyuubi that disables humans and panics animals. Similar, but not identical to Killing Intent.

Kyuubi exuded an aura that stimulated and manipulated the baser instincts of every living animal around it, including humans. Humans feel like prey staring into the eyes of a far stronger predator and are frozen by the effects. The terror effect is also a building reaction, meaning that the longer a person is subjected to it, the more intense it becomes and the harder it is to resist its effects. People will eventually have panic attacks, then start hyperventilating, then suffer seizures, and eventually will even have heart attacks and strokes. Fortunately, the latter stages take some time to work up to, but even the short term effect are devastating. Only people of _exceptional_ willpower can withstand the full effects of the terror. When the fox attacked, most of Konoha's forces were crippled by the Kyuubi's mere aura, leaving the village little more than a large sitting duck, though to be fair there was little even a fully operational ninja army could have done against the Nine-Tails.

This ability is different from Killing Intent, as the latter has no building reaction and can't actually harm someone. Killing Intent also doesn't directly toy with the baser instincts to the degree that the Terror Effect does, which is why many shinobi can resist it.

Naruto inherited this ability after the fusion. To use it, he changes his eyes to their red, slit-pupil form and concentrates on the demon's rage and hatred. Anyone who looks into his eyes feels the terror effect about 80 percent the full power. Anyone he makes direct eye contact with feels the full 100 percent intensity of the terror. One disturbing aspect about this ability is that the person Naruto is making eye contact with can't break the gaze, forcing them to endure the building reaction. Naruto can kill someone in a _very_ painful manner if he holds eye contact with them long enough. Obviously, the full power works only on one person at a time, making it a liability in a fight against a group (reason why it's B Ranked.) People who experience the fringe effects (looking into his eyes, but not having a direct eye contact) feel a slower building reaction. They can break eye contact eventually, though it's painful to do so.

As a note, people who are familiar with Naruto's chakra aura and naturally don't fear it (ie. some of the Rookie 9, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Iruka) can only feel the terror effect at about 30 percent fringe effect and 50 percent with direct eye contact. They suffer an even slower building reaction and can break free with half the difficulty a normal person would experience, though the effects are still very powerful. For some reason, Ino has an unusual resistance to the terror. The terror invades her mind like normal, but it doesn't actually effect her thoughts. It's currently unknown why she has this partial immunity.

**Naruto's Demon Seals**: Pretty much whatever is mentioned in this chapter. I'll probably add a detailed description them later.

**Reviews**: I'm getting way too many reviews every chapter to respond to most of them and from now on I'll only respond to the ones that really catch my eye. If you really want a response to a question, mention it in your review and I'll see about adding it in to the next chapter or emailing it out. Nothing big, just "Please respond" or something. If I don't get back to you, I apologize but I'm starting to get really busy here lately so I may not be able to. Just as a note.

As I'm writing this, I'm currently exhausted having spent about eight hours editing this thing, so I'm only going to reply to one review that caught my eye. I want to get this thing posted before noon, so I'm just going to say 'sorry' and reply to reviews in the next chapter or update this one later.

**Cobra-100**: Sorry man, I can only afford one trip a year and I've already promised to go out west on a dig with a friend of mine this summer. I wish I could go (it looks like fun), but I can't this year. Thanks for the review man. You're always a good source of intelligent compliments _and_ criticism.

Everyone else, sorry I couldn't get to you this time. I do appreciate the responses all of you give though. I read _every_ review, good or bad, so don't think I forgot about you or anything. Thanks for all the feedback.

**Next Update**: Uhg, Chapter 6 finally uploaded the 11th. As I griped under General, I'm not going to give specific dates anymore. Expect Chapter 7 out in a week or so, give or take a few days. I'll still update pretty regularly, but I'm not making promises I can't keep anymore.


	7. Alleycat Blues

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: Naruto has returned! He spends several hours talking to Tsunade and explaining the various changes he's undergone. Later he has a reunion with Ichiraku and decimates their food supply. Ino encounters him at the shop and challenges him to a fight. They fight at a stalemate, with Naruto unable to land any blows and Ino unable to leave lasting damage. The fight climaxes when Ino uses the Chidori on Naruto, which he quickly recovers from.

**Chap. 7 – 1980s Reptiles Chorus "Alleycat Blues."**

The stars were still shining overhead when Naruto opened his eyes. He yawned and stretched for a moment, before relaxing back onto the ground. After his fight with Ino last night (err, earlier tonight?) the kitsune had been unable to find an inn with vacancy to crash at. Apparently, a lot of people traveled to the Hidden Leaf in the middle of spring. Something about the trade kicking up after winter and the tourism value of the Hokage Monument. It really didn't matter much to the teen. He'd just wandered off and found a comfortably secluded training ground to sleep in for a few hours. The soft, grassy earth was almost as good as a bed to him so he'd just flopped onto his back in the middle of a field and dozed off. He wasn't worried about any Leaf-nins sneaking up on him, as he hadn't sensed any nearby before he'd tanked. Seven months of assassination missions had honed his senses to a razor edge even while he slept.

Naruto rolled over on his side and shifted a little to get more comfortable, though he knew it was almost impossible to go back to sleep. He'd always been a stamina freak, even before the Kyuubi merged with him, but now it had gotten to an excessive level. Four hours was the longest he could sleep for, even if he'd been injured. It was linked to his demon chakra somehow, as the kitsune had discovered exhausting the Kyuubi's energy granted him an extra couple hours of sleep, depending on how much he'd drained away. Seven hours was the record longest time he'd ever slept since the merging. While it was mostly a good thing, considering he was still hyper and active like the original Naruto, he found that his mind felt stretched and brittle when he went for several days on such minimal rest.

The Kyuubi had known a great deal about human anatomy and had a mild interest in published scientific and medical journals. After spending the first few weeks after the ritual feeling on edge, Naruto had dived into the demon's memories and absorbed several relevant (and non-relevant) blocks of medical information. He'd learned all about REM, the different levels of sleep, and how sleep in general affected the state of the human mind. Humans needed sleep for more than just resting their bodies. Sleep was a way of allowing the brain to work through and process all the information the mind had taken in over the course of the day. Without that, the neural networks are strained and the mind eventually becomes unstable, even to the point of insanity in rare, severe cases.

No wonder Gaara was crazy. Damned if he did; damned if he didn't.

In an effort to avoid following his cold friend's path, Naruto took to the habit of relaxing for at least two hours after he woke up. He would lie back and force his mind to unfocus and wander. At first, his hyper nature got in the way, but over time it had developed into a welcome habit. He'd also made a point to meditate for several hours at least once a week. As the original Naruto, he had never really taken the time to think things through and to reflect on everything that happened in his life. It was always, 'Gotta-go-gotta-go-gotta-go' for him. Then again, when he was younger the most painful times in his life were the lonely nights he'd lain awake, neither crying nor making a sound, just staring at the ceiling of his shitty apartment. Running around without thinking had been a coping mechanism. If he could just live in the _now_, he wouldn't have to think about the cold apartment he left every morning and would return to every night. It caused him to act foolish to the extreme, but it helped keep the pain away.

The Kyuubi, on the other hand, took to brooding or hibernating whenever it wasn't spying on or killing things. It would mull, ponder, and dissect every little detail about an incident until it had all angles covered and all possible outcomes reached. It was highly critical of both its victories and its failures, as it was always striving to get stronger and to perfect its already monstrous power. There was a reason why it had become the strongest demon on the planet after all. The two extremes in their personalities leveled out into the new Naruto thinking before he acted and allowing his mind to wander for a couple hours every day. While it wasn't the Kyuubi's extreme level of analyzing, he still found answers coming to him and new possibilities opening up in ways he hadn't considered. For him it was enough. He wasn't a born genius and neither had the Kyuubi been one, but like the fox before him he'd found that if he combined a reasonable amount of foresight and thought with his sharp cunning and good instincts he was able to out maneuver almost any opponent, regardless of their intellect. Warriors who planned some and improvised the rest of the way tended to be the most dangerous and successful of shinobi.

There was a reason why Jiraiya was such an incredible fighter after all.

Naruto had found, both in his travels and in his memories of Konoha, that while geniuses thought faster and better, they also tended to think rather linearly in at least one major way. That wasn't to say they couldn't adapt, it was just that no matter what they held something constant in their minds. That rigid way of thinking led to mistakes that were surprisingly blatant to everyone else. For instance, Sasuke was always certain of his superiority, even against an opponent far more powerful than he. It was obvious to Naruto and Shikamaru that Gaara was an enemy that the Uchiha simply could not beat, no matter how much training he had done in a month. The look on Sasuke's face when he realized that fact would have been comical, if it weren't for the fact that they were all fighting for their lives.

Neji had been certain that things always worked out a certain way, no matter what. Naruto couldn't imagine a more linear mind if he tried. The Hyuuga had been absolutely convinced that he would beat the Dead-Last and it never once crossed his mind otherwise. Neji had then been absolutely shocked when Naruto managed to recover from his attack and tip the scales in his favor during their fight. The Hyuuga boy hadn't bothered to think out an extra strategy in case the blonde boy survived his attacks and had been left wide open for Naruto's counter.

Really now, they were _ninja_! Of _course_ an opponent will fight dirty or pull out a hidden move no one was expecting. They'd only been trained to do that since they were kids!

Kakashi was always certain he had a situation pegged, no matter what it was. While he was usually right, every now and then something he hadn't considered a possibility came out of 'nowhere' and left him blindsided. He had been certain Sasuke could beat Haku and was shocked when the feminine boy displayed an Advanced Bloodline. The copy-nin was sure that Gai had made a mistake in all the abilities he'd taught Lee, then was stunned at the boy's amazing prowess. He was certain Sasuke had more potential then Naruto and thus invested all his training into the boy, only to be dumbfounded when his other student displayed a superior jutsu. Naruto had learned from Jiraiya that Kakashi had also been reasonably certain that his Sharingan could combat Itachi's (to some degree, at least) and was decimated by the rogue Uchiha's attack. Worst of all, the jounin had been sure that Sasuke would never betray the village or turn on his friends, regardless of all the signs that had pointed otherwise. Naruto wasn't sure what his former teacher's reaction to that news had been, but he was pretty certain that the Copy-ninja had a shocked-stupid look on his masked face.

Some people just never learned until it was too late.

And of course, the most (in)famous genius of all, Orochimaru. That guy was ridiculous. Elaborate planning, no matter how well done, was just going to result in unseen casualties and a higher rate of failure. What was that old saying the humans to the east used to say? "The best laid plans go to waste." Humans were naturally unpredictable creatures, no matter how much they seemed otherwise and even without including them into the equation, there were still thousands of unknown variables and unforeseen obstacles. No plan of action could ever take everything into account, no matter how much material was covered. The Snake-Sannin's greatest weakness was that when one of his plans hit a snag (as they always did) he had the damnedest time working around it and often took a severe counter attack while he was re-planning his strategy. Sandaime had proven that much when he stripped his former student of the use of his arms. While Orochimaru managed to handle some things that went wrong, his overconfidence and inability to adapt to unforeseen problems was going to be the death of him someday.

'Preferably by my hand,' Naruto grimly thought to himself as he stared at the twinkling stars overhead. That man had killed Sandaime over a _temper tantrum_ about who got picked to be the Fourth almost twenty years ago. A kind old man, who wanted nothing but peace for his people, was murdered by a spoiled brat on an ego trip. That was reason enough for the kitsune to kill the hermit, but Orochimaru hadn't stopped there. He'd committed the absolutely unforgivable sin as far as Naruto was concerned.

He'd hurt Naruto's big sister.

Both Jiraiya and Shizune had commented on the serious injuries Tsunade had received during the fight while shielding Naruto. Jiraiya had even gone so far as to ask about the kin-jutsu she used to heal herself, though he'd shut up immediately at the dark looks the other Sannin and her student had sent his way. Obviously there was a price to pay for using her Souzou Saisei seal. The kitsune had picked up on it and pestered them all until Shizune had finally taken him aside and told him what was wrong. Tsunade had lost years of her life during that fight. They had no idea how long she had yet to live, but her lifespan had been irreversibly shortened. Naruto hadn't been able to say much to that, though from that point on his anger at the Snake-Sannin had boiled into a burning fury that only grew with time, Sasuke's betrayal, and every Leaf casualty he heard about. His thoughts on the whole matter could be simplified into one simple concept.

Orochimaru would pay. End of Story.

Out of all the geniuses Naruto had ever met, Shikamaru was the one with the greatest potential. The only line of rigid thinking that the kitsune had observed in the Nara was that he occasionally took things at face value. His panic over Ino's stunt in the preliminaries and his underestimating of several shinobi (including Naruto), were examples of that. However, unlike most of the genius crowd, Shikamaru learned from his screw-ups. He'd fuck up, nearly get killed or make an ass out of himself, and then he'd think about where he went wrong. Shikamaru didn't brood about his failures like Sasuke or the snake-freak, he _learned_ from them. In that way, he was always getting better, victory or defeat. That was a powerful mindset that easily countered his habit of overlooking some things.

…Err well, Naruto had to be honest and admit, the Nara also has another weakness: he's a lazy bum. He didn't train much or have much interest in learning new skills, so he was almost always fighting an uphill battle whenever he tangled with someone. Every time Shikamaru went into combat, it was like he was playing chess with a king, a knight, and a handful of pawns against someone with a full team. He could still win in theory, but the odds were heavily against him.

Still, it was impressive how much the Nara boy pulled off with what he had. His performance during the chuunin finals was incredible.

And there was still one other. One other genius whom Naruto had no idea how to contend with. A man who was barely older than a boy himself, yet had been stronger than most Kages for years. A man who Sasuke was but a pale imitation of. Even now, just the thought of those icy red eyes made the kitsune edgy. Red eyes that had caught him red handed, yet hadn't stopped him for some reason.

"_Soon."_

Naruto forced his thoughts away from the unsettling memory and on to less worrisome topics.

As the teen's thoughts floated about aimlessly, they eventually drifted to the time of the exams and Sasuke's fight against Gaara. This in turn led him to thinking about his quiet friend. Immediately after the fusion ritual, he'd staggered and wobbled off in a random direction in a shocked daze. The kitsune personally had no memory of that or what happened afterwards, but Gaara had later told him that he'd found him fighting for his life against a group of Sound-nins. The possessed boy had immediately grabbed Naruto with a protective layer of sand and tried to leave. The Sound then made the mistake of trying to stop him, despite knowing who he was. Gaara had considered their request, politely denied it, and gave a counter argument that the Sound had been unable to debate.

Or survive.

Naruto hadn't been sure what he was expecting when he woke up, but it certainly wasn't a pale-skinned boy with black-rimmed eyes and a creepy stare asking him if he wanted something to eat. Of course, the kitsune hadn't been in a _listening_ mood then, seeing as how the ritual had only fused the souls of boy and demon, not the minds. He was half mad with confusion and it was a good thing Gaara had the perfect ability to restrain a mad half-demon or the chronic insomniac would have been on the receiving end of razor sharp nails and teeth. The Sand boy had handled the situation remarkably well. Ironically, Gaara would make a perfect orderly at one of the old asylums that used to be run in the fallen cities. Or a patient.

Naruto chuckled at the thought and allowed himself to get lost in the memories of the event.

* * *

"You're awake."

He slowly…It slowly… He? It? Slowly cracked his (its) eyes open and stared at the its (his) surroundings. He (It) was in a decent sized cave that had been eroded into a sandstone cliff. The erosion was uneven, making it much taller than it was wide and at the top of the cave there were holes that opened out into the night sky. The ground was covered in a thick layer of fine, pale-yellow silt, the quartz grains shining and flickering in the firelight.

Fire?

It (He) painfully turned his (its) aching head to look at the small campfire that had been made in the center of the cave. A familiar figure sat next to it, calmly eating some stew out of a bowl that looked suspiciously like the sand on the ground. Gaara of the Desert hadn't changed much in a year, at least not physically. His red hair was growing longer and his face was leaner, but that was about it. He had altered his outfit a bit and wore overlapping, scarlet colored garments that were still held together with the odd collection of leather straps and belts he'd had in the chuunin exams. His large sand gourd sat on the ground near him. The blonde boy (fox-demon) stared a bit when it (he) noticed that the container had an odd collection of stamps, stickers, and mini-posters from various countries all over it.

Huh, so Gaara liked to travel. Who knew?

"Are you hungry?" The possessed boy asked in his low, cold voice. He gestured to a large, earthen pot sitting over the fire that held a bubbling stew of some sort in it. The smell was delicious, but for some reason he (it) wasn't hungry. Probably had something to do with the fact that it (he) felt like shit and the mere thought of food was nauseating.

"Uzumaki-san?" Gaara asked when he (it) didn't reply.

"I…He...is not. I am…We aren't…I'm Naruto?" It (He) said in a halting, confused manner, ending with a questioning tone. The thoughts in his (its) head made no sense. It was like there were two demons (people) thinking inside him (it.) Its (His) head hurt.

"If memory serves, you are Uzumaki Naruto," Gaara calmly replied, before taking another bite of his stew. His sharp, pale-green eyes never left him (it) though, despite his casual attitude. "If you are not Uzumaki-san, then may I ask who you are?"

A boiling fury the likes of which it (he) had never felt before burned through his (its) mind. How _dare_ this little insect claim to not know its (his) great name!

"Filthy ape-rat!" He (It) roared as it (he) surged off the pile of animal furs that served as a bed. An aura demonic red chakra ignited around him (it) as it (he) lunged at the foolish worm sitting by the fire. He (It) brought its (his) clawed hand up and slashed the boy's face apart, spilling blood and brain matter everywhere, while roaring in triumph. Gaara's shocked green eyes stared in disbelief as he fell over, spilling gore and stew everywhere.

It took him (it) a minute to realize that it (he) hadn't moved more than a foot across the cave floor. And that the other nin was completely unharmed.

Gaara didn't even blink at the violent display as he ate another bite of his stew. The blonde boy (demon) thrashed as much as it (he) could in the confines of the sand that had encased his (its) body up to the neck. The fine quartz grains were unrelenting no matter how hard it (he) struggled. His (Its) fiery aura flickered in and out as its (his) thoughts jumped back and forth from the two different personalities in his (its) head. It (He) alternated between roaring out curses in a guttural language of growls and staring about in confusion while wondering aloud what was going on.

Gaara had finished his bowl and eaten most of a second by the time his companion wore himself (itself) out in the Sand Coffin. He looked up at his semi-prisoner, seeing that the demon (boy) was now panting and allowing his (its) head to sag forward. Now he could finally ask some questions.

"If you're not Uzumaki-san, then who are you?" The possessed boy asked, repeating his question from earlier. He scraped the last of his stew out and swallowed it before allowing the bowl to dissolve back into sand. He idly watched the grains run through his fingers to the floor, before glancing up at his captive. "Well?"

"I…Think we're Naruto. I'm Naruto. Its Naru…We…I don't know," It (He) said helplessly. He (It) was confused as hell with all these bizarre thoughts going through its (his) head.

"Really? You sound as if you're someone else as well," Gaara calmly replied. A soft block of sand rose up out of the floor behind the possessed boy as he leaned back. He reclined against it, getting comfortable as his green-eyes watched the blonde demon's (boy's) every facial expression.

"APE-RAT! Show proper respect towards me! I am the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the Eastern Lord and greatest of the youkai! Bow before us, you pitiful black-eyed bast…Who? We're Kyuubi? We thought I was a ninja…Or are we a fox?" He (It) suddenly stopped as it (he) got a painfully confused look on his (its) face. It (He) really had no idea what was going on and couldn't remember anything solid to get regain his (its)) mental bearings.

"Kyuubi…" Gaara said thoughtfully, while ignoring the half-insane mumblings of the trapped boy (demon.) He knew of the Nine-Tails' attack on the Leaf and its subsequent defeat, as it was common knowledge to every other Hidden Village (it _was_ rather hard to hide the fact that a gigantic demon-fox attacked and leveled a large section of Konoha as well as several smaller Fire villages, no matter how good the Leaf's counter intelligence teams were.) Still, what would the fox have to do with Naruto? Unless, of course, those rumors he had heard while eavesdropping on his father late at night could be believed (there were _some_ advantages to being the child of the Kazekage _and_ a chronic insomniac.) The rumors had been that the Yondaime Hokage failed to kill the beast and instead settled for sealing it inside something. A living something. Well, that was a disturbing possibility, though it made sense to the redhead when he considered the boy's odd statements and the conversations they'd had during the chuunin exams. Not to mention that the bizarre chakra wave he'd felt earlier could only be explained by a powerful youkai.

So Naruto was a demon-vessel too…Gaara wasn't sure what to think of that.

"What happened Uzumaki-san, Kyuubi-san?" The possessed boy asked, considering that perhaps addressing both entities would get them to cooperate long enough to answer his question.

"We….Were threatened…Left Konoha...A ritual…We became one?" It (he) replied in confusion. Damn, his (its) thoughts were still so muddled! It was hard to concentrate with two different opinions on what to think about.

"A fusion of some sort," Gaara said, filling in the blanks. It wasn't well known, but some Sand-nins considered him a genius and it showed sometimes. People just tended to think otherwise as he usually preferred killing his enemies with overwhelming amounts of brutality and raw force rather than the skilled finesse most geniuses fought with. His intelligent mind was at work now, considering all the details and problems of the situation. Or at least as many as he could. Gaara was smart enough (or insane enough) to know that he had limits and it was unwise to spend too much time planning things out. Still, it was helpful to have a general guideline. No map is perfect, but that doesn't mean they aren't useful.

His first priority would be getting the Kyuubi side of the fusion to calm down enough for the Naruto side to regain some control. As far as he could tell, the merging was incomplete and their minds were in conflict. He'd put his energy into making sure they were stable at first, then he could move on to the next task, which was getting them to work in harmony together. If they learned to instinctively think like each other, then they'd meet at some halfway point and act like one mind instead of two. Gaara was already thinking up some simple training exercises to help with that. And finally the third step, which was completing the fusion. Rather than acting like one mind, they'd literally _be_ one mind. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any real way to help with that. Likely as not, it was either something they'd have to do on their own or an inevitable fate as a long-term effect of the ritual. He couldn't be of direct help in either case, but at least with the latter he could speed things along with the first two steps.

Beyond all of that, the main thing Gaara could do to help would be protecting and restraining the half-demon to keep Naruto from harm. Keep him alive and healthy, so that the blonde would hopefully survive this mess with his mind intact. The possessed boy certainly hoped his fellow demon-vessel made it through this ordeal okay. When Naruto had beaten him during the invasion, both the fact that there was somebody who _could_ beat him was running around in the world and the words the blonde had spoken had managed to shock some of the madness from Gaara's mind. His thoughts had cleared enough that he'd found something to hold onto.

_**They saved me from the hell of being alone.**_

It truly was hell to be so isolated. Gaara had originally coped by inflicting as much suffering on everyone else as possible. Not surprisingly, this just made him lonelier, which in turn made him more enraged at the world and made him lash out at any fool stupid enough to cross his path. It was literally a vicious cycle and one that took a serious shock to break. From the day of his defeat onwards, Gaara had made a self promise to find himself someone to protect. Fortunately, he had two people who cared (or at least worried about him constantly) near him all the time that he could focus on. It had worked, to some degree, and he was much more stable for it. His siblings were a bit unnerved by his new attitude towards them at first, but the welcome idea of finally having a real family quickly brushed those misgivings away. Kankuro relaxed around him more often and Temari's smiles were actually genuine for a change.

That made him happier than he'd ever dared to imagine. And Uzumaki Naruto (and the Kyuubi to some degree, he supposed) was responsible for the small, yet invaluable piece of happiness that had made its way into the Sand-nin's life.

Gaara would see every Village on the continent burned to the ground before he forgot that.

To repay a debt that couldn't truly be repaid, the possessed boy would protect and assist his lone brethren in his (its) hour of need. It wouldn't be too hard, seeing as how they were in the middle of Nowhere, Wind Country and the odds of anyone finding their isolated cave were slim to none. The odds of anyone finding them and then being stupid enough to tangle with Gaara of the Desert were virtually non-existent. With uninterrupted peace and quiet, there should be little in the way of slowing Kyuubi's (Naruto's) mental progress down.

"DIE APE-RAT!" He (It) screamed as it (he) lunged forward and disemboweled the ignorant redheaded twerp.

Gaara let out a small, weary sigh as he stared down at the ground where the demon (boy) was rolling around in pain and clutching his face. He (It) had finally managed to dig itself (himself) out of the Desert Coffin and attacked the other boy again, only to slam headfirst into a wall of chakra-hardened sand. And here he thought that an ancient demon (boy) would be more intelligent than that.

"I suppose we'll start with the basics," The possessed boy muttered as he eyed the blonde that was still writhing about in an exaggerated manner. Really, his sand wasn't _that_ hard.

Naruto (Kyuubi) only growled (whimpered) in reply.

* * *

Naruto blinked as he came aware again. The moon was lower on the horizon now. He must've managed to doze off again for a little while. He yawned and idly scratched his stomach through the burned hole in his clothes. Oh yeah, that must be it. He used some extra demon chakra last night when he healed his wound up. Crazy blonde bitch. Sheesh, was it really necessary to impale him? As much as it irked him, the kitsune was rather impressed by how well she handled herself. It was annoyingly similar to fighting Sasuke, but it was still impressive nonetheless. He grinned a little viciously and his eyes flickered red. Not many girls had the guts to use lethal force in a sparring match. Naruto would have been revolted by the idea, but Kyuubi saw that as a sign of strength and inner determination to succeed.

The new Naruto wasn't really sure what he thought on the matter, except that it piqued his interest.

The kitsune yawned and cracked his neck, while pondering over Ino's improvements. Judging from the fighting prowess she'd displayed during the chuunin preliminaries, Naruto could tell that she'd greatly increased her chakra capacity _and _control (she hadn't lost her hold on the Chidori once) and _drastically_ improved her speed and tai-jutsu. His eyes narrowed and flickered red again as he considered the parts of Lee's personal style displayed with every move the blonde girl made.

He was going to have _words_ with Kakashi about that.

Despite the fact that the tai-jutsu was bastardized from someone else's fighting style, it still had remarkable results in Ino. The girl moved almost as fast as Lee did without his weights and that was saying something. Err, that is to say, she moved almost as fast as Lee did the last time Naruto had seen him in action. The kitsune had little doubt the weird boy had kept up his insane work ethic and was likely far stronger and skilled now with two and a half years of training under his belt. Naruto idly wondered if it was even possible for him to beat the thick eye-browed boy for a moment, before his thoughts returned to Ino. On top of her great body conditioning, the girl must have also worked on her nin-jutsu and gen-jutsu. Enhanced by a Bloodline or not, those were some serious illusions. And that one-two combo she did would be lethal to almost anyone. Trap the enemy in an illusion enhanced by semi-hypnotic psychic suggestions, then finish them off quick with the Chidori.

Interesting indeed. He'd be sure to think up a counter for the next time they tangled.

Naruto smoothly kip-upped to his feet and looked around the training ground for a decent sized tree. Finding one about thirty feet tall, he quickly moved and ran up its trunk to the highest point. Using chakra to spread out his weight, he managed to stick to the top foot of the last branch without snapping it and quietly looked out over the dark forest to the west. The utter tranquility of Konoha at night relaxed him. The night was clear, the sky pitch black except for the little pinpricks and the silvery-blue halo that encircled the moon. Not a sound disturbed the peaceful stillness, except for the occasional whispering wind through the trees. It reminded him of another land he'd visited, so far in the west that it would take over a week and a half of running to reach it.

Gaara proved to be a capable guardian and with his help (and sand restraints) Naruto and Kyuubi were able to finally merge their minds into one over the course of a month and a half. The possessed boy had him doing all sorts of odd tasks to bring the minds into harmony, ranging from sparring to dish washing to eating with chopsticks to even reading. Despite the fact that the minds were unified, Naruto's body had taken a terrible strain from the merging and he still needed time to recover, along with a restful place to do it in. During his travels, Gaara had once visited a tranquil Hidden Village in the west where no one could take any hostile action. Curious, Naruto had left his friend and made his way there. Along the way, he'd encountered Akatsuki several times and it took him longer than it should have to reach Star Country as he was always ducking and hiding. When he reached the border, the kitsune was surprised to find that the days were short within the country. _Very_ short. By the time reached the Hidden Village of Night, daylight was none existent no matter what the hour.

And the village itself was something to behold.

* * *

Naruto gave one final super-jump and landed on top of the large, stone wall that surrounded the Hidden Village of Night. His jaw dropped a little at the surreal and drowsy place that lay before him.

The Night was a large, though compact place where the buildings were made out of old wood and…adobe? Running his hands along the wall he stood on, Naruto nodded in confirmation. They used a different mud than the lands of Coyote, but the masonry was still all lined with smooth clay. In the light of the moon, all of the building glowed a creamy purple color. The buildings were constructed haphazardly, with no real rhyme or reason to their design. They were usually square, and were often stacked on or near each other. The entire place was built on a large outcrop of land that jutted outwards from the edge of a cliff at an upwards angle, tilting the village slightly. The effect was made more extreme by the large, towering structure the Night-nins had built at the farthest and highest edge of the village. Naruto wasn't sure if it was a cathedral, a hotel, or a government building of some sort. It looked pretty cool though, with odd sections jutting out at weird angles and with the windows glowing an inviting array of colors. Come to think of it, most of the village looked inviting with each window glowing a different, gentle color. The entire place looked like a group of fireflies had decided to make themselves at home here and were twinkling to invite more of their brethren in.

Well, far be it for Naruto to decline such a pleasant greeting.

The kitsune leapt down from the wall and landed in a dark, shadowy alley. A nearby house provided a yellow glow that kept the shadows from being oppressive. Not wanting to disturb the tranquility, Naruto remained silent as he wandered down all sorts of side alleys and streets. They were the only real way to get around and they felt narrower as all the buildings were tall and slanted in odd ways. Everything about this place said 'cozy' or 'quaint.' It had the feel of a place that was constantly dozing, only briefly awakening whenever something needed to be taken care of. He passed several odd little shops as he made his way to the center of the city. The town square was small, with just a large statue-fountain of some shinobi in the center and a ring of open food bars surrounding it. One outdoor cafe caught Naruto's eye and he wandered over and ordered some meat buns (he didn't dare try the ramen, as the poor quality compared to Ichiraku would surely taint his view of this place.)

After paying and sitting down, the kitsune grimly noted that his pockets were almost empty of money. While munching on his first bun, he looked about the square. All of these shops looked pleasant, from the perspectives of both the owners and the customers. In fact, this whole place had a restful, peaceful feel to it that greatly appealed to him. The air held a fresh, clean smell and there was the faint sound of wind-chimes in the background everywhere he went. _Very_ peaceful. The fusion ritual felt like it had sapped half the life out of him and even now after two months he still hadn't recovered. A tranquil place like this was perfect to spend at least a couple months recuperating. If he could get a job at one of these little shops to pay his way, then he could support himself while keeping his mind partially occupied as he rested. Yes, that seemed like a good plan. He'd probably sleep well in a place like this.

Watching the small number of citizens wander about the square had Naruto so relaxed that he nearly jumped out of his skin when a large hand dropped on his shoulder.

"Whoa, whoa! Relax, I didn't mean to startle you," Said a tall man as the kitsune whirled about and started to go for one of the kunai Gaara had given him. "I'm sorry to disturb your meal, I just wanted to trade some info for a bit."

Naruto relaxed his hand at the man's genuinely apologetic eyes. The man relaxed as well and gave a polite bow.

"I'm Uradoori Yashoku; jounin of the Hidden Village of Night," The man said with a friendly smile. Naruto finally noticed the forehead protector engraved with a crescent moon hanging casually around the man's neck. He wore an odd uniform that seemed entirely made up of light-weight, dark-colored pieces of cloth held together with dozens of buckles. It certainly didn't look very ninja or even military like. Yashoku himself was almost as tall as Kakashi and had dark brown hair that hung into his pale face. The kitsune had already noted that _everyone_ here probably had pale faces, considering sunlight had probably never touched these walls. The guy also had drooping, slightly drowsy eyes like he'd just rolled out of bed. He was odd looking for a ninja, but he seemed genuinely friendly, so Naruto returned the bow with one of his own.

"I'm Kitsune. Hatake Kitsune…Missing-nin," The self-described missing-nin replied. If a jounin had found him out already, then lying wouldn't be a good idea. It was better to be honest and hope for the best.

"Ah, I thought so when I saw you," Yashoku casually replied. "You move too smoothly and silently for a samurai or a mercenary, yet you don't wear a forehead protector. I'm actually kind of surprised you didn't make a ton of racket when you came in here. Most missing-nins who walk down the road in plain sight usually start posturing loudly and picking fights or trying to kill someone."

"…It doesn't fell right to disturb anything here," Naruto calmly said after a moment. His hand edged near his kunai holster. This guy was acting a little too friendly, especially considering he knew the kitsune was a missing-nin before he even spoke to him. As an unspoken rule, foreign ninjas (even allies) weren't welcome in other villages without a damn good reason and missing-nins even less so. He didn't know what the jounin was up to, but if he wanted a fight than Naruto would give him one, even if he did feel like shit.

"Really…Well good! Then you're welcome to stay as long as you want," The Night-nin replied one piercing look and genuine smile later.

"Err, Okay...Why?" Naruto asked, looking puzzled. Just because he didn't want to make a bunch of racket and bother people, they were going to let him stay?

"Because we have one major rule here…Actually, it's our only rule: don't cause conflict," Yashoku answered. He pointed at an empty chair at the opposite side of the table. "May I sit?"

"It's your village," The blonde missing-nin said, gesturing to the spot.

"It's still rude to bother people while they're eating. Oh, don't let me stop you from finishing your meal. Those buns don't taste good cold, I know," The pale jounin said, waving at the plate in front of Naruto. He waited till the blonde had resumed eating before he continued, "To explain our rule, you should know that here in the Hidden Night, there are never any conflicts or fights that last longer than a couple seconds."

"…Your ANBU must be good," Naruto said with a suitably impressed look on his face. He hadn't sensed anyone as he moved through the city. They must be pretty damn skilled if he didn't feel even a faint flicker.

"We don't have any. Jounin is the highest level of ninja in the village, aside from the Kage," Yashoku replied with a small smile.

"Then how do you guard your village?" The missing-nin asked in confusion before taking another bite out of his bun.

"_We_ don't do anything. Our shinobi aren't particularly powerful, at least not when compared to other villages. We don't even leave the village unless it's to protect the caravans that come around every now and then," The Night-nin answered. He leaned back in his chair as he explained, "You see, there's a powerful _force_ that's bound to this land. Our predecessors originally built this village here to contain and guard the being trapped here, but over time the village itself became a part of it and it became a part of the village. The eternal night of this city and the dark days in the countryside are a side-effect of its presence. Fortunately, the creature has became benign over the years and now has little interest in anything other than dreaming. It hates to be disturbed though or for anything to bother the citizens of this village, so it immediately deals with any hostile activity."

"How?" Naruto asked with a slightly wide-eyed look on his face. Eternal night. Always seeing the stars. That sounded exactly like-

An aura of killing intent caused the half-demon to break off his line of thought and whirl in his seat. A shinobi, a Sound-nin, had leapt down from a roof across the square and was rushing at him. Shit, this clown must have tailed him here. He had run into a squad of Sound-nins a week back and had killed them with a series of explosive tags (courtesy of Gaara) hidden under a log bridge they had crossed over. He thought he had gotten them all, but apparently not.

"How convenient. The perfect time for an example of our guardian's power," Yashoku calmly said as he reached across the table and grabbed Naruto's shoulder to keep him from jumping up. "Show no hostilities and you'll be fine. This is already over."

The kitsune forced himself to relax, even as the Sound-nin quickly closed the distance. The man let out a loud yell as he raised an arm covered in a strange device (probably made to generate sound waves of some sort like that one genin during the exam) and started his attack. Before his cry lasted a second, a pool of shadows opened up underneath him. Naruto got one good look at the man's confused face before he fell into the dark mass and disappeared. The rippling shadows quickly vanished like they had never been there.

The half-demon's jaw dropped at the sight.

"Pretty disturbing, yet cool, huh?" The jounin said with a chuckle. Naruto shook his head clear of the daze. No, it wasn't the nature of the attack that stunned him. It was the fact he had seen that move before, thousands of years ago. This just confirmed his original suspicions. So _it_ had been imprisoned here…

"I…See what you mean. So hostile action is a bad thing. I'll keep that in mind," Naruto said when he realized he had been silent for several moments too long. The Night-nin must have shrugged it off as shock, because he made no mention of it.

"Yep, but if you're peaceful then there's no better place to live. My family moved here when I was a kid and I can tell you there's nowhere else in the world that'll give you a better night's sleep," Yashoku said with a pleasant grin, that shifted into a slightly concerned look. "You seem pretty worn out or sick or something. Is that why you've come here?"

"Yeah. I was involved in a nasty…_accident_ a couple months ago and my body and mind are pretty brittle right now," Naruto said, deciding to pay back honesty with honesty. Or at least as much honesty as he could risk.

"Well this is the place for you!" The jounin cheerfully said. "People heal and sleep better here…Err, that's probably why we usually sleep for sixteen hours a 'night.' Anyways, this whole place is nice to rest body and soul. As long as you don't cause trouble you're welcome to stay as long as you want, Hatake-san."

"Thanks," The kitsune said as he swallowed the last bit of his final meat bun. The empty plate in front of him reminded him of his nearly empty pockets. He had maybe 200 ryo left, if he added all the change together. Hmm, he needed to get a wallet to keep all his junk in. Ero-sennin still had his froggy wallet (which was likely emptier than his plate by now) so he should pick up a replacement while he was here. Though he needed to get something to fill it with first. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know of anyone hiring around here, would you?"

"…Hmm. You're in luck. There's a nice little antique shop in Moonshade Alley that needs an extra hand. The owner's sister used to help out but she moved to another village recently so he needs a new worker," Yashoku said. He pulled a piece of yellowed paper out of his pocket and scribbled down a rough map. "Just follow this and hit the bell at the counter. He's the only one who lives there anymore, so he should come running when he hears it. If he doesn't hire you or if you want some extra work, drop by the Hotel."

The jounin paused to point over the high rooftops at the large, haphazard building that Naruto had admired from the wall.

"The Hoshikage takes care of business there, though even if he would let you take missions we don't get enough to share them with outsiders. On the plus side, our repair and maintenance crew works there and they're always looking for extra help," The Night-nin continued. "There are always buildings around here that need to be repaired, cleaned up, or torn down and rebuilt. Hang out with them and you'll pick up some handy construction jutsu and maybe even learn how to build a house! Those two are the only real sources of income, unless you plan on opening a shop."

"No, I won't be here that long," Naruto muttered distractedly as he slid the map over and looked at it. He had passed pretty close to this place when he was wandering around, so it wouldn't be too hard to find it. He glanced up and gave a polite nod. "Thanks for the warning and the info. I'll head over and check this out."

"No problem. Just don't start any fights and you'll be fine. Although…" Yashoku paused for a second as he looked at the missing-nin thoughtfully. Naruto had slid his chair out and was about to leave when the jounin's tone caused him to stop.

"What is it?" The kitsune asked in a neutral voice.

"Nothing big, it's just…" Again, the Night-nin looked at him thoughtfully. "Most visitors ask about the bound creature the first time they're here. The idea of something so powerful that it causes eternal night grabs their interest. There's no rule against it. You can ask, you know."

Naruto was silent for several long moments before he faced the pale man again. Yashoku was taken aback by the old, weary look in the boy's (teen's? He couldn't possibly be older than fifteen, at the most) eyes. They flickered a blood red color for an instant.

"Believe me when I say there's nothing that you could tell me about the being imprisoned here that I haven't already known for a very long time," The kitsune said, then turned and started to walk away. He casually called over his shoulder, "It was nice meeting you, Uradoori-san. I'd enjoy getting together here with you again sometime."

Yashoku stared at the boy(?) for several minutes after he left. The jounin finally shook it off and walked away down a different alley, looking to head home. He would need an extra couple hours of sleep to forget the…_ancient_ look in that kid's eyes. And he thought living in an eternally dark village was weird.

With a full stomach and the knowledge that he was relatively safe here, Naruto took his time wandering the back alleys and little winding paths in between the old buildings. His night-vision had improved since the merging, so it was no bother to him when he went through a particularly dark street or five. He occasionally paused to peek in though some of the warm, inviting windows of the houses and found himself smiling at the cozy scenes he saw inside. The village seemed to carry a theme of 'old, worn, and comfy' that was a sharp contrast to the shoddy appearance of most Konoha buildings. Then again, with a powerful entity protecting this place, the citizens must've had the time to make it look nice, if a bit surreal. The kitsune couldn't help but smile a little more when he saw the shop the jounin had spoken of.

It was three stories tall, which was actually kind of short compared to most of the buildings here. It was wedged in between two larger structures (whether they were homes or shops, he couldn't tell) and had a large, glass orb hanging on a metal post at the base of the shop's stairs. It was glowing a gentle, yet powerful yellow and it took Naruto a moment to realize that it was actually a lamp made from hand blown glass. He had seen similar ones outside other buildings, but none of them were homes (at least not the first floors where he could peek in.) He guessed it must be this village's shop marker. It made sense, as a lamp was far easier to see than a painted sign in the dark. The light the lamp gave off lit up the little cul-de-sac the shop was based in, though it left the surrounding buildings in shadow. In the still silence, the effect was dreamlike and it was easy to pretend he was the only person in the world.

The shop itself was the only one in the dead-end that was lit up. There was a faint, blue light glowing from the second floor that was almost unnoticeable compared to the vibrant orange that shined through the first floor window. That color caused Naruto to smile. Fate must be trying to tell him something. The building was the same, purplish clay that all the other buildings were made out of (he assumed it was purple, though it might just be because of the darkness) and worn wood lined the windows, the door, and the roof. The kitsune had no idea what type it was, except that it was a reddish color and it smelled pleasant. The door was large and thick, yet inviting at the same time.

Far be it for him to decline.

Naruto walked up and grabbed the smooth, brass knob before letting himself inside. The door was well-oiled and opened soundlessly, except for the little bell that rang as he opened it. He allowed it to close just as quietly behind him as he stepped inside. The kitsune's jaw dropped at all the strange things this shop had to offer. There was everything from beat up old books and scrolls to refurbished samurai armor to odd little mechanical toys that he'd never seen before. Little devices that whirred and clicked almost soundlessly made a pleasant hint of background noise as he moved through the shop. Most of the items for sale were set on sturdy shelves that lined the room or on the tables that had been pushed up against the walls.

"Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"

Naruto almost threw a kunai at the sudden, bizarre sound and only barely managed to restrain himself before he grabbed his holster. A tall (seven feet at least) clock stood pressed up against the wall near the counter. It was gorgeous. Even someone as unrefined as Naruto could see it was a masterpiece. The wood was perfectly carved and polished, the face was clean, the roman numerals were lined with gold leaf, and even the weird bird that kept popping in and out looked impressively realistic. He had never seen anything like it before, but was still struck with an odd sense of familiarity. Perhaps something from the Kyuubi's memories that he'd yet to experience. He got the distinct impression it was _very_ foreign. Maybe even as foreign as that strange land called 'Europe' that the fox had seen once upon a time. On the shelves and tables were smaller clocks, each well made and some even containing little moving mechanical dioramas. They were strange, yet neat to look at.

Letting his eyes move past the clock tables, Naruto's eyes fell on an even stranger display. It was propped on a stand covered in black felt. Little pegs stuck out and supported the metal object's weight. It was about ten inches long and had a funny 'L' shape. The smaller end looked like a hand-grip of some sort and a ring was built into the inside corner where the two sections met. There were a couple odd little switches and other strange pieces built into the thing, though what they did Naruto had no idea. The main shaft of it was polished to a bright sheen and the kitsune could easily see his reflection in the silver-chrome despite the low light of the shop's lamps. There was a hole of the end of the long part and the object was cut at several odd angles there. There was even a small point at the tip of it, though again he had no idea what it was for. Script that was slightly darker than the chrome it was engraved upon lined the side of the thing. Leaning over, Naruto realized it was text from one of the weird languages he had heard in the Kyuubi's memories. Slowly, he sounded the words out and came up with the translation.

"De…Sertu? Deeesert…Eee? Gra…Gull...Desert Eagru. Desert Eagle .50 AE."

Well that made no sense. What the hell did this thing have to do with a stupid bird in the desert? Huh, maybe Gaara would know. Despite its odd name, the object was still interesting to look at so Naruto reached out to lift it off its display.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

The kitsune just about jumped out of his skin and pranced about as a skeleton. Kami-sama, what was with the people in this village and sneaking up on him? He whirled about, ready to scream at whoever was behind him.

Only to blink at the sight of…No one. What the hell?

"Rather twitchy, are we? Over here, sonny."

Naruto walked up to the counter and leaned over it to peek on the other side. He promptly jumped back five feet as a mechanical creaking sound echoed in the store and a strange contraption that looked like a chair built onto folding, thin metal crossbeams rose into the air. The chair was only half of the weirdness though. Its occupant was a strange, small man who didn't look like anyone Naruto or the Kyuubi had ever seen before. He was short…_Very_ short. He probably stood four feet even. He had thick, black hair that had streaks of gray in it and had a large bald spot on the top of his head. It was the man's face that caught the kitsune's attention the most. First, he had a huge beard. Asuma would shave his face in protest at the sight of the foot and a half long mustache-beard combo that hung off the little man's chin. It was grizzled, wiry hair too unlike most of the people Naruto had seen in his life. It was odd, but somehow fitting on this strange guy.

The second big thing Naruto noticed was the man's nose. It was huge. End of story. No seriously, it looked like someone had taken a potato and carved it into the general shape of a nasal organ and glued it to this guy's face. It didn't look malformed or anything, it was just…_big_. Again, like the beard, though it looked strange it seemed fitting on the odd man. Naruto could vaguely see a pair of small, blue eyes peering at him from behind a set of work goggles. The goggles made him drool (him having a not-so-secret love for the things.) They were round and made from leather (_leather_!) that had been dyed gold and had odd designs worked into it. The lenses were quality, the kitsune could tell. Despite the worn look the goggles had, each disc had barely any scratches on them. The man had even custom fit them to his face! They were…perfection.

Naruto decided right then and there that this odd fellow was a kami in disguise and should be treated with the respect he deserved. In other words, he'd wait to hear what excuses the man had for scaring the shit out of him before he killed him and took the masterpiece that was on his head.

"Well, aren't you an odd fellow," The man said as he looked at Naruto curiously. He ignored the kitsune's look that screamed 'pot calling kettle!' "I wonder…It's been some time since I've seen someone with your hair color. And those are the most intense pair of eyes I've ever seen. Are those tattoos on your cheeks?"

Naruto blinked. It wasn't the questions the man had asked that threw him, it was that he'd asked at all. Even the most observant individual in Konoha had never thought to ask about his cheek scars. Likewise, no one noticed his hair or eye color, despite the fact that both were rare. Hell, only a handful a people in the entire village had either. Either this guy asked personal questions to everyone he met or he was very perceptive.

"Uh, I've had them since I was a baby, I think," The kitsune answered.

"Hmm, are they a family trait or are people in the habit of tattooing helpless infants where you come from?" The man asked as he leaned forward to eye the blonde missing-nin curiously. His voice had a strange accent that neither boy nor demon could place.

"Neither. They're a…side-effect of something that happened the day I was born," Naruto replied, shifting slightly on his feet. Despite coming to terms with the Kyuubi, he was still uncomfortable with the thought of the day he was sacrificed and the Yondaime was lost.

"Well, that must have been a big something. I've never seen such marks before," The little man said. It was hard to place his tone from his accent.

A flashing image of fire, blood, and a blonde man with fierce blue eyes staring at him defiantly hit Naruto's mind briefly.

"You could say that."

"Hmm, well what can I do for you, sonny? …Oh, my, my, where are my manners? I'm always forgetting the customs of these lands. My name is Tobias Tinkerlot and I'm the proud grand nephew of Oswald Fiddlebender, silly fellow that he was. Always crashing into things…Anyways, it's a pleasure to meet you, err…" Tobias said as he peeled a work glove off and extended a surprisingly large and tough hand across the counter. Naruto barely hesitated before he grabbed the hand and shook it firmly.

"Uzumaki Naruto, though I'm going by a different name while I'm here," The kitsune replied. He wasn't exactly sure why he gave his real name, except that he had a gut feeling he could trust this odd little man. He was obviously from some other land. It wasn't a common custom to shake hands in the villages of this continent. Though it never bothered Naruto, some of the snootier types thought it was unhygienic or some other complex word. The missing-nin took note of how rough and calloused the man's hand was, despite the fact that he was obviously no warrior.

"Well, a pleasure to meet you Naruto. Err, that is your given name, right? I get so mixed up around here," The shop owner said while scratching his beard with his unoccupied hand.

"Yeah. I guess Tobias is yours, right Tinkerlot-san?" Naruto replied, guessing that he was from one of those other lands he remembered where the surname came second. He felt a bit proud of himself for correctly pronouncing the 'L' in the man's name.

"Yes, yes, though please call me Tobias," The little man said as he released his grip and leaned back in his chair. He gave a wide gesture to his shop and said, "Now then, welcome to my antiques and oddities store, young man. What can I do for you?"

"I was actually interested in getting a job here. I heard from one of the jounins that you were looking for work and thought I'd drop by to apply," The kitsune answered, casually putting his hands in his pockets.

"Ooh! Really? Oh, yes, yes! I certainly could use the extra help now that Marion has moved to Glacier Country," Tobias said eagerly. He practically hopped in his raised seat at the thought of having an assistant. He paused suddenly and scratched his beard as he asked, "Err, though I should ask first, what experience do you have with repairing or constructing things?"

Naruto winced and said, "Well, not so much constructing as _de_structing. I've been a ninja for a few years now and I've only really needed skills to break or kill things."

At Tobias' crestfallen look, the kitsune hastened to reassure the man.

"But I'm a fast learner and I have a couple useful tricks. Watch!" He loudly declared, as he formed a hand seal. With a high pitched pop, a clone appeared next to him and waved at the shop owner. "See, four hands are better than two."

"Ohhh, I see. Yes, yes, interesting," Tobias said, switching from scratching his chin to thoughtfully stroking his beard. "And that's a real body? How many can you make at once?"

"Yep, it's real," Naruto replied. He had the clone reach over and pick up a small figurine on a table, then set it back down. "And a couple times I've managed to make a thousand of them at once, though that's probably way too much for this shop."

"A _thousand_?" The little man shrieked as he nearly fell out of his chair. "My, my, that's incredible. I'd be hiring a legion of workers for the price of one. Hmm, well as long as you can learn how to fix things, I don't see any problem in bringing you on. Welcome aboard, Naruto."

"Cool," The kitsune said with a heartfelt fox-grin. A thought occurred to him and he nodded back towards the odd display piece he'd been looking at earlier. "What's that thing over there? It looks pretty neat, though the engraving doesn't make any sense."

"Ah, that's an interesting device," Tobias said as he lowered his mechanical chair behind the counter. A few moments later he stepped around the bar to walk to the display. Naruto was right when he thought the man was short. Despite growing an inch since he'd fled Konoha, the kitsune still wasn't a tall person by any means and this guy didn't even clear his shoulder. He also got a good look at his new boss' outfit. It looked like a set of work coveralls, though they had an unfamiliar design and make to them. Despite being worn, they looked as well cared for as the (awesome!) goggles the little man wore.

"This is a weapon called a firearm," Tobias said, distracting Naruto from his observations. The shop owner lifted the shiny device off its stand and held it up for the kitsune to see. "It's based on the principal of channeling exploding gases to force a spinning metal cylinder out the hole at the end at _very_ high speeds. It's loud and somewhat silly looking, but it does a nice job of blowing large, messy holes through things. Fascinating device. I found this one when I was doing a survey in a fallen city to the southeast about fifteen years ago. Was still in its original case and everything. Considering it's at least nine hundred years old, it was in surprisingly good condition, though I haven't been able to repair all the parts. I believe this particular model was rather fickle when it came to maintenance and that's making progress on it slow. Another few years of work and I may be able to get it into firing condition again or at least have reversed engineered it enough to create one of my own. Here."

Naruto carefully took the weapon as Tobias held it out. It was heavy…Surprisingly so, but it was almost a comfortable weight. He fitted his hand onto the grip and gently tensed his hold. It fit almost perfectly into his hand. If he were full grown then it would've been an exact match. A sudden memory flash hit him and caused his eyes to glaze over. After several seconds, his eyes cleared and he adjusted his grip properly and aimed the gun (which he now knew was its other name) at his clone's head. He added his left hand in a standard firing pose and lined the sight up perfectly right between the bunshin's eyes. His finger gently grazed the trigger and he grinned.

"Boom."

The clone crossed its eyes and disappeared with a pop, acting as though it had actually been shot. Something clicked in Naruto's mind at that sight. The bullet would have easily penetrated the clone's head, but if he lined up ten of them, then maybe the round could have been stopped. The kage bunshin could at the very least stop a kunai or a punch. Kage bunshins were more than just a distraction, unlike normal bunshins. A shadow clone could be used as much as a shield as a sword. He'd just never thought of them that way because of how easily they could be disrupted. Maybe he could…

The kitsune blinked a little as his train of thought fell victim to his short attention span. He didn't really know where he was going with this idea, but it was something to think about in the future.

"My, my, you certainly seem to know how to use that," Tobias commented in a surprised voice, which drew his companion out of his thoughts. Naruto relaxed his stance and let his armed hand hang casually at his side. "It took me quite some time of trial and error to figure out how to hold it properly and when I finally found a manual it turned out I still got it wrong. That's remarkable."

"Not really. I have a cheat-sheet," Naruto answered cryptically. He carefully handed the firearm back to the shop owner and watched as the little man replaced it back in its display. "So it doesn't work, huh?"

"No, several parts are ruined with age and I don't trust the replacement parts I've made enough to actually fire the weapon. I have a gut feeling the whole thing would explode in my face if I tried. I'm making headway, though it will still be some time," Tobias replied as he turning back to face the boy.

"Well, good luck with it," The kitsune said, shifting on his feet.

"Thank you," The short man said with a polite nod of his head. There was a bit of a silence after that, which Tobias finally broke by saying, "You seem to have something on your mind. Feel free to ask."

"Err, it's kind of rude but…" Naruto hesitated, then decided to just spit it out. "Uh, why are you so short? You don't look like anyone I've ever seen before."

To his surprise, not only was Tobias not offended, he was greatly amused and chuckled quite loudly.

"Hohoho, finally someone has asked me that. Everyone considers such questions rude in these parts, never thinking that I wouldn't mind in the least to answer," The odd little man laughed. He composed himself and said, "Ahem…I come from a proud and long line of Tinkerlots, all of whom were inventers, metal crafters, and general fix-'em-uppers…And all of whom were gnomes."

"…Gnomes," Naruto repeated slowly, not quite sure he had heard the foreign word right.

"Yes, yes, though I'm only a half-gnome, as were both my parents," Tobias replied jovially. His small eyes were bright with mirth. "My father and grandfather were brilliant inventors. When I was thirteen summers old, they completed an invention that had taken them close to sixty years to create. It was designed to make a stable gateway to another world, though when they powered it up it was anything _but_ stable. My father and I were pulled into the vortex and we wound up here in this strange land with no way home. We wandered about, trying to find a safe place to live and eventually wound up here in the Hidden Night. Over the course of several years my father opened this shop and remarried, which resulted in my wonderful sister Marion. It's been probably…Oh, about sixty-five years since we moved here. My father's wife died twenty years ago and my father finally followed about seven summers past. Marion and I have lived ever since, at least until she moved recently. Does that answer your question, sonny?"

Naruto slowly blinked. Even for someone who was a demon's living prison, that was an unusual tale. The blonde's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he did the math.

"Wait, that means you're seventy-eight years old!" He loudly exclaimed. "You barely look like you're forty!"

"Gnomes tend to live about half again as long as humans, sonny. The only real downside is we outlive human spouses should we marry them. Even half-breeds are quite hardy into their early hundreds," Tobias said with a small smile.

"Wow, that's really cool…Err, except for outliving your family," The kitsune said with a bit of a sheepish look.

"Hmm, true, true. I wonder…" The gnome said as he peered up at the missing-nin. "Since I was forthcoming, might you tell me a bit about yourself? It's not perfect, but I do have a bit of talent in the way of extra senses and I can tell that though you are many things, you are no more human than I. Part of you is something…else. Care to enlighten the ignorant?"

Naruto gave the short man a long and hard look. Perceptive indeed. This guy was as sharp as a well made katana. Well, he'd been honest enough to admit some personal things about his family life first, so it would be kind of rude not to indulge his curiosity. Besides, he seemed pretty honest. And there was something innately likable about the guy that caused the kitsune to trust him more than he did most people.

"Well, you're half-gnome; I'm half-demon. Odd couple, aren't we?" He slowly replied after a couple seconds.

Tobias blinked several times as if he hadn't heard correctly.

"Half-demon…You mean a tiefling? Here in these lands?" The gnome said in a half-awed, half-puzzled tone.

"Tiefling? Err, dunno what that is but I had a Demon Lord sealed into me when I was a baby. I don't think that's the same thing," Naruto replied, scratching his hair in confusion.

"Oh, no it isn't at all. My, my, I think a long story like this needs to be told over some tea. Would you prefer green or some of my family variety? It's quite good, though probably not what you're used to," Tobias said as he moved behind the counter to the open doorway that led into the back, while gesturing for Naruto to follow.

"Err, gnome tea? That won't make me short, will it?" The kitsune asked as he trailed after the shop owner.

Three hours later, Naruto was laying on a _very_ comfortable bed, staring at the ceiling of a cozy little room and listening to the faint sound of wind-chimes drifting in the open window. He and Tobias had talked for hours and not just about the Kyuubi and the ritual. Though he had little in common with the man, there was an undying curiosity that boy, demon, and half-gnome alike constantly felt the pull of. Naruto was pleased to note that the odd man's eyes hadn't changed once during the whole story, with the exception of a fascinated gleam or a sympathetic frown here and there. Even after finding out about the merging, Tobias hadn't changed his opinion one bit about the boy and had even gone so far as to offer him a guest room when he found out Naruto was still recovering from the fusion.

'Offer. Pfft, like Tinker-Boss would take no for an answer,' The kitsune thought in his head. Tobias had been supremely worried when he found out about the aftereffects of the ritual and the only way Naruto had been able to calm his new friend was to accept his hospitality and take one of the spare bedrooms. There was a whole series of odd rooms throughout the small building that couldn't be seen from the shop. There was a large workroom in the back on the first floor. The kitchen, living room, and study were on the second floor and the bedrooms and bathroom completed the lot on the third floor. The room the blonde missing-nin was staying in was small and comfortable with a window that overlooked the cobblestone cul-de-sac outside. It was very nice over all.

In a matter of hours he'd gotten a great boss and new friend rolled into one, an interesting shop to work in and learn new skills at, and a pleasant place to live and rest his damaged body. It would take some getting used to living in a place of eternal night, but on the whole this place was better than Naruto had dared to dream. Everything was as perfect as it could possibly be.

Now if he could just figure out what the heck was a gnome…

* * *

The sky was graying over the horizon by the time Naruto was done reminiscing. He grinned at the thought of his strange friend still living in the Hidden Night. Tobias had been an able teacher and an intelligent companion. Every 'night' after they closed the shop up, they'd often wander around the village with the gnome pointing out various sights and the kitsune listening with rapt attention. They would spend hours debating or discussing various old literatures (Tobias had a _great_ collection of ancient authors) or just swapping tales. It had been a wonderful experience. When Naruto felt he was recovered enough to search for a place to train, Tobias had suggested he seek out his sister in the Hidden Ice. He'd given him several parting gifts and ordered (as much as a gentle old tinker could order) the boy to keep in contact no matter what.

Smiling, Naruto took out his friend's first gift and wrapped it around his head. When Tobias confirmed that the kitsune was headed towards glacier covered mountains, he'd crafted a fine pair of goggles for the boy (they'd both discovered a shared fetish for the protective eyewear.) They were semi-rectangular and angled so they perfectly molded to his head. The lenses were made out a tough plastic-glass material that was very hard to damage. The tinker had also built in a second set of lenses that were darkly tinted and could be slid down to cover the clear set just by moving a simple slide on one side. The goggles extended back to Naruto's temples, to keep from limiting his vision range like a normal pair would. Tobias had completed the eyewear with a thick, leather strap that was soft and durable and had several spiraling designs marked into it. Over all, it was a cool, sensible product and had been invaluable in Glacier Country. It kept the wind-blown ice flakes out of his eyes and the dark lenses blocked the snow-blindness that was a serious problem during the day.

And, of course, they looked really, really cool. Needless to say, Naruto had almost professed his undying love when the little half-gnome handed the goggles to him.

The kitsune adjusted his goggles and raised the tinted lenses so he could see clearer. The sun was just climbing over the tree-lined horizon, so he figured it was only about six or so. He had no idea when Tsunade would be in her office, but it likely wouldn't be for at least another hour, maybe two. Until then, he'd just wander through the village and see if anything had changed in the two and half years he'd been away. Maybe he'd find a place to get something to eat. He certainly didn't hope to find Ino. Interesting though she may be, he wasn't in the mood to fight again so soon after he'd just gotten back home.

With the way his life went, there'd be more than enough fighting his future already without crazy blonde chicks attacking him with high-grade assassination jutsu.

Naruto released his chakra hold on the tree and kicked-off backwards as he fell. He smoothly dodged the branches of the tree by twisting and turning in mid-air and landed on the ground in an almost soundless crouch. The kitsune frowned a little at the lack of an impression in the soil when he lifted his feet away. If he could fall thirty feet and leave almost no footprints on impact, then it was time to up his gravity seal. He couldn't afford to slack off, no matter how much he might want to. The kitsune had decided that he was going to shoot for unsealing the next unit of demon chakra the first of June and at the rate he was going his body wasn't going to be ready by then. He was going to have to buckle down and hard-core train the next four weeks. Unfortunately, he needed a place to live where he could sleep properly and experiment with seals and jutsu without any prying eyes watching. Until he got such a base of operations, he wasn't going to be able to do much.

Well, hopefully Tsunade had found the answer to that.

Humming a little as he started walking towards the village, Naruto dug into his side-pouch and pulled out a battered and earmarked book that he immediately opened to read as he walked. Unlike Kakashi's choice in reading material, this volume wasn't perverted at all…by today's standards anyways. Tobias was an avid book collector and he'd found records and traces of hundreds of foreign and local literary masterpieces. The gnome had spent years repairing and translating what texts he could find and as a result the tinker had a small shelf in his study that housed almost forty wonderful volumes, several of which being amongst the Kyuubi's personal favorites.

Naruto had read all of them. He had been utterly stunned to learn he was a closet reading nut.

Delighted at having a fellow bookworm living with him, Tobias had often gotten into debates with the kitsune over the best authors and the hidden meanings inside each story. They'd both had a wonderful time during their discussions, which would often last for hours. When Naruto had left, the second parting gift he'd received was a small, carefully bound copy of his favorite story. Tobias had spent several days copying the original (with an odd machine that made 'tik-tik-tik-tik-diiiiing' sounds and had little buttons with letters on them) and binding the pages into a new volume. The gnome had apologized that he wasn't able to give the kitsune the original copy as it was far too beaten and weathered to survive any trip, but Naruto had just shrugged the man's concerns off. Having a copy of his favorite book had made him happy enough to start running up the walls and he'd thanked Tobias profusely for the gift. The story was written by an on European author and was light-hearted, _very_ well written, and funny.

It figures Uzumaki Naruto's favorite book would include a bizarre love quadrangle complete with uptight fool, a sneaky prankster, and a stuck up queen who falls in love with a man with a donkey's head.

"Lord what fools these mortals be," The blonde teen said as he turned a page. The demon in him seriously considered turning that into a personal motto, but decided not to as it would make him sound like a stuck-up bastard. The kitsune rarely looked up as he left the training grounds and entered the streets of Konoha. After all, it was a good read no matter how many times he poured over it.

Despite the fact that he didn't even attempt to hide his whisker-marks or distinctive hair color and style, Naruto didn't draw any extra-unusual stares as he made his way through the early morning crowds. A couple jounin he passed glanced at him funny, but that was just because he moved with the unnatural grace of a powerful shinobi, yet wasn't wearing a forehead protector. He took his time walking and well over an hour had gone by when he finally arrived at the Hokage's Tower. As he was still technically a missing-nin as far as he knew, Naruto stayed away from the main entrance and avoided the crowd of familiar faces he saw coming and going. Ducking around the back, he found the place he was looking for.

Eight seconds and four well timed jumps later, the kitsune was crouching on the windowsill of Tsunade's office. He quietly slid open a window and slunk inside.

'Damn, where the hell is Baa-…Nee-chan?' Naruto thought as he glanced about the empty office. He shrugged, then walked over and plopped down in the Hokage's chair. It was more comfortable than it looked and the kitsune didn't think twice about leaning back and propping his feet up on the desk. He started to read his book again before hesitating. It wouldn't do for an ANBU or a jounin to come in here and find him. He closed his eyes and grimaced in pain as his bones and muscles changed shape.

"That should do it…" The replica of Tsunade said as she raised her book. She almost dropped it in shock as she stared at her wrinkled hands. It took a second for her to make the connection. "Oh, right…Her gen-jutsu.."

Naruto concentrated again and this time a hiss of pain escaped her as a second layer of changes overtook the first. The shape-shifting inherited from the Kyuubi came in two levels, though both changed the body physically. Naruto could mimic anybody he saw, though it was only a thin, superficial illusion that was about the same as a henge. The first level could also shift the appearance of clothing, as long as it was fairly tight garments. Unfortunately, it was easy to detect for shinobi who were trained in such matters and it could fall apart if his concentration was disrupted. The second level took care of that.

Every person Naruto came into skin to skin contact with left an 'imprint' that he could use to change his body into a perfect replica of theirs. He still needed to have a good idea of what they looked like, but once he pulled off the shape-shift the only thing that could end the change was him. The Kyuubi had been far better at it, but Naruto was slowly getting there. He could mimic chakra signatures and habitual movements already, though both were far from perfect. Still, it fooled most shinobi long enough for him to make his move, be it attack or escape. The second level of shape-shifting must have picked up on what Tsunade really looked like as opposed to the gen-jutsu that everyone else saw. Adding the first level of change on top of that corrected the mistake (and would make her seem more genuine, ironically,) but she was going to suffer if anyone accidentally knocked into her.

Either shape-shifting level made her body extra sensitive, but overlapping the two levels would lower her pain tolerance so much that a single blow could drop her.

With her now smooth fingers, Naruto reopened her book and began reading again. Hopefully the real Tsunade would show up soon and they could pick up where they left off the day before.

And hopefully the Fifth wouldn't leave the kitsune in charge while she ran off on a gambling spree.

Naruto was eagerly getting to the climax of the play when she heard voices approaching the office. She quickly tucked her book away and casually stood up to walk over to one of the scroll shelves that lined the office. Pretending to be poking around looking for some odd medical text, the kitsune kept her eye on the door, ready to move just in case. As it opened, the worst possible combination stepped inside.

"-age-sama. I know the dem-…boy is important to you, but the security of the village comes first. As the Godaime, you must agree," Said an average sized man wearing an elaborate mask. His head was turned away from Naruto and was facing…Tsunade.

The real Tsunade.

Who stared at the fake with wide eyes for a moment before she composed herself. Unfortunately, the ANBU Commander noticed and immediately turned to face Naruto.

"Ah…Yamanaka-san. What brings you to the Hokage-sama's office?" He asked the blonde girl standing there. Said Hokage interrupted before the kunoichi could.

"I believe that's _my_ question, Commander. Ino-san is here because I ordered her to come…Not that it's any of your concern," Tsunade said in a sharp tone, firmly letting the ANBU know he was pushing her last nerves.

For the leader of the elite shinobi of Konoha, the man withered quickly under the Fifth's vicious glare.

"Oh…Ah, yes. My apologies," The Commander said to cover his slip. Tsunade ignored him as she stepped around the desk and sat down.

"Now then, Commander. I have other business to attend to, so unless you have something new to add please leave," The Fifth said with a raised eyebrow, plainly hinting that the conversation was over.

"But Hokage-sama! How can you just allow such a serious threat to walk around unchecked?" The ANBU continued, moving forward to stand in front of the desk.

"If I remember correctly, the main reason why he's here at all is because _your_ ANBU didn't even notice him enter the village. Funny, they seem to have a habit of missing serious threats that make little effort to hide themselves. Tell me, Commander, how many times have Orochimaru's forces strolled about our town virtually unchecked? How often has Orochimaru _himself_ entered this village without any effort? They walk about in broad daylight and not one ANBU notices," Tsunade said with a voice full of barely restrained venom. As the man began to sputter indignantly, the Fifth continued, "Since you and your people are such poor judges of internal and external threats, I will remain the final opinion on who is our enemy and who isn't. Uzumaki Naruto is _not_ our enemy and as far as I can tell he's managed to convince the Kyuubi to not be our enemy either. Any shinobi who takes hostile action on him without just cause will answer to me."

Tsunade's eyes darkened and a powerful killing intent nudged the ANBU Commander's senses.

"And Commander, _I_ will be the final judge of whether it was a justified action or not, so it had better be a _damn_ good reason. If it isn't, not only will I strip the shinobi down to a genin, but I'll also hold you personally accountable. Now I'm sure you have something better to do, like explaining to the ANBU Corps. the horribly complex differences between Leaf and Sound forehead protectors. Leave already."

Now sputtering in fear, the ANBU Commander turned to leave only to be interrupted by Naruto.

"I just wanted you to know that I appreciate the quality of your ANBU, even if other people don't," The blonde girl said with a fox-grin as she reached out and grabbed the man's hand in a firm handshake. The Commander twitched as something like a static shock zapped his palm.

"Uh, yes…well we do our beeeeaaas! Ah, our best," He finished weakly. The ANBU slowly pulled his slightly swollen hand back from the girl's deceptive grip. "That's…quite a handshake you have there."

"Really? I never noticed," Naruto said with a wicked grin on her sharply beautiful features. She feigned a slightly confused look as she asked, "I'm sorry for interrupting you, Commander. Weren't you just leaving?"

"Uh…Yes, I was," The ANBU Commander slowly said. After a couple moments of silence, the man uncomfortably made his way out of the office.

Tsunade waited a couple seconds after the door closed before she ordered, "Lock it."

As Naruto did so, a smug look grew on her face, which was rapidly returning to its naturally masculine form. He'd only had three imprints of Konoha shinobi (four if you counted that ANBU dork he beat up), as the shape-shifting ability had only gone active after the ritual and people he had touched before then didn't count. The day before, he had passed Shizune on his way in and mimicked a tourist briefly so he could imprint her by acting clumsy and bumping into the young medic. Tsunade had touched him several times yesterday and Ino…Well, skin to skin apparently counted even when it was skin to internal organs. When he saw both the Hokage and the Commander, he had altered both layers of change to quickly become the blonde girl. It hurt like hell, but it was worth it.

After all, who knew how valuable the ANBU Commander's form could be?

"I see you can mimic me perfectly," Tsunade wryly commented, dragging the kitsune out of his thoughts. She gasped in surprise when he turned around, exposing his slashed and torn outfit with the gaping hole in the area. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I tangled with an old…err, acquaintance," Naruto replied with a dismissive shrug. He wasn't exactly sure how to refer to Ino, as he barely knew the girl. The kitsune walked back and plopped down in the chair in front of the desk and said, "Don't worry about it. I doubt I'll be doing much fighting for awhile. I have other things to take care of."

"I suppose so," The Fifth replied, leaning back in her chair. She allowed herself a small smile at the sight of the blonde teen in front of her desk. A great deal of tension had faded now that her little brother was back home and safe…saf_er_. She gestured to the door and said in an annoyed voice, "As you can see, the Commander and most of the Council haven't taken the news of your return very well. I had to use my full authority to keep them from engaging a nasty plan of action they've been cooking up this past year. It's going to take some time, but hopefully I'll have you reinstated and back on active duty soon. Honestly, why they're wasting their time on this when we have the Sound to deal with is beyond me."

"I could give you a long and drawn out story as a metaphor for their actions, but I don't think you'd appreciate the waste of time," Naruto said with a dry tone. "Humans are humans and among their many traits are cruelty, cowardice, and a long memory when it comes to anything that wrongs them. They'll never forgive me. Not because I killed so many Leaf-nins, but because I committed the worst crime imaginable on a village of warriors: I made them helpless. Mentally and physically, I effortlessly crippled them and they'll hate me to the day they die because of it."

"You're talking about the terror effect?" Tsunade said with an intelligent gleam in her eyes. "The records of the Kyuubi's attack spoke of an aura that decimated the willpower of all but the strongest shinobi. The rest were left laying on the ground, screaming in fear."

"That too," The quasi-missing-nin replied. "It was made worse by the fact that they couldn't scratch me, no matter how hard they tried or what jutsu they threw at me. My terror aura often broke through even tough minds when they succumbed to despair after failing to harm me. I still have the ability, though it's not as strong as the original Kyuubi's aura."

"Show me," The Godaime ordered after a second's consideration.

Naruto shrugged and slid his goggles upwards to rest on his head. His incandescent blue eyes changed into a blood red color and the pupils distorted into slits. Tsunade had just a second to consider how disturbing they were before a wave of horrible fear struck her. The air in her lungs left her in a whoosh as her body instinctively reacted to the terror like it was a physical blow. It took her several moments to overcome it, but in the end she managed to force it down to manageable levels. She wasn't the Fifth for nothing after all.

"Alright, kill it," Tsunade ordered. Instantly, the terror effect stopped and Naruto's eyes returned to normal. The Godaime sifted through her experience as she allowed her heart rate to settle down. The kitsune was patient and perfectly content to sit there waiting for her response. It didn't take long for the Hokage to say, "You were holding back."

"Yep," Naruto said with a nod of his head. "I can't generate the amount of rage and hatred needed to make it work at full power when I'm facing someone I care about. That limits it some. Also, people who care about me in return seem resistant to it, though I have no idea why. I tested it while I was in Glacier Country on both the Yajin-Kage and Tsurara-chan. It didn't affect either of them as much as it did other people. Overtime, it'll get stronger as I absorb more of the Kyuubi's chakra."

"I see. When're you going to absorb the next portion of the Kyuubi's power?" The Fifth asked in a serious tone.

"Uh…About a month, I think. Depends on how much training I can do between now and then," The blonde teen said as he scrunched up his nose in thought, "I was planning on doing it the first of June, but I don't know if that's going to work out."

"Regardless of when you do it, I want to be present. Jiraiya too, if I can get in contact with him before then. Consider that an order," Tsunade said with a firm voice. Her face relaxed a little as she asked, "Is there anything I can do to help for the training? I don't suppose you'll need a jounin sensei, but if you want access to the training grounds or something we could work it out."

"Maybe…" Naruto said slowly whole scratching the side of his face. "Did you get a hold of the land plots like I asked?"

"Yes, hang on," The Fifth replied as she leaned over and opened a drawer. After a couple moments of riffling, she pulled out a small stack of papers and tossed them on the table in front of her. "There you go. We don't have much empty land inside the village walls, but there're still some unused zones here and there near the walls. On the plus side, land isn't in much demand so the prices aren't as high as they could be. They're still pretty expensive though."

Naruto grabbed the papers and started to flip through them. Each held a description of a land plot that included the size, boundaries, price, and a general idea of the terrain. Some even had a couple pictures. One spot caught his eye, though he went through the stack twice to make sure there were no others that were better. He grinned a little, then pulled out the paper and tossed it to Tsunade.

"That one. You think you could get me the deed today?" The kitsune asked as he set the other papers to one side.

The Fifth glanced over the description and nodded slightly to herself. It seemed like a nice place. Almost six acres, all heavily wooded and mostly surrounded by large, forested areas, seldom used training grounds, and a couple empty orchards. It ended two hundred feet from the village wall, so it would be easy for him to come and go without attracting a lot of attention. A good place for a Hunter-nin to live, though the Council would tear their own eyes out before they ever let her promote him to such a level. Still, it would be a good spot for him to train in privacy and to be away from the stares of the villagers. Hmm, it wouldn't be too hard to get the deed. As long as he had the money for it, she could put it through the proper channels without anyone being the wiser.

Wait, how much did it cost? Tsunade let her eye move over to the price and winced.

"Naruto, this is way too-"

"I think this'll cover it, Nee-chan," The kitsune interrupted as he set a (very) large stack of bills on the desk. The Fifth nearly broke her desk in half with her jaw as she stared at the wad of cash. Naruto shrugged a little and said, "What? I was the Hyougakage's apprentice. You think he had me doing lame genin missions when there are missing-nins to hunt?"

"I…Holy shit," Tsunade said as she reached over and slid the money towards her. In all honesty she had seen more in her gambling days, but not often. There had to be over 800,000 ryo in that pile. To make that much from seven months of active duty was unheard of by all except the top three or four shinobi in a _country_. Simply stunning.

"And you made this much as a _chuunin_?" She asked incredulously.

"Chuunin in name only," Naruto casually replied. "That was the highest rank the Glacier Council would let me have as an outsider and they only let me get that high because Yajin-Kage asked them to make an exception for me. Honestly, I see their point. It's not a good idea to have a high level shinobi in your ranks who has loyalties to other countries. Most of the Council seemed to like me though and a couple promised me a jounin promotion as soon as I agreed to live there permanently."

"You gave up a jounin rank, a skilled fiance, and becoming the future Kage of Glacier Country to come back home to a place where people hate you?" Tsunade asked in an odd mix of sarcasm and wonder. She immediately regretted saying anything at the slightly hurt look on the blonde's face. "…I'm sorry, Naruto. I shouldn't have said that. I can't imagine how hard it would be to leave a village where people respect and admire you to go to a place where people hate you for being…you."

The kitsune stared at the floor for a long minute before he looked up and said, "This is my home. It may be full of assholes and weak idiots, but it's still my home. No matter how much I may wish it otherwise. My family is here. My place is here. And, honestly, if it looks like things are still totally shitty in about four or five years, I'll probably take Yajin-Kage up on his offer anyways. He left the offer open to me and since he isn't going to be retiring anytime soon, I have awhile to think about it."

"I see," The Godaime quietly said. "I really am sorry, Naruto."

"Forget it. How many times have I said dumb things?" Naruto said with a bit of a smile. "And you didn't answer me. Do you think you can get the deed sometime today?"

"Well, you have the money, so…" Tsunade muttered thoughtfully, staring at the bills. She tucked them into an envelope along with the plot description and a scrawled out order on official looking paper. The Hokage glanced up at the kitsune and said, "Shift into Ino-san again."

As Naruto did so, the Fifth hit a button on her desk. A moment later, one of her guards unlocked and opened the door.

"Yes, Hokage-sama?"

"Take this-" Tsunade paused as she sealed the envelope and handed it out to the shinobi. "-to the property management office and give it to the head honcho there. Tell him or her I want exact change from that. If there are _any_ problems I'll come down to…_resolve_ it personally."

The guard shuddered at the thought of the Fifth's idea of resolution and quickly took the envelope before backing out of the room.

"Bossy much?" Naruto asked in amusement after the man left and he resumed his natural form.

"People have been getting lenient these last few years in respect to Sarutobi-sensei's rule. If they relax about that, then they'll get lazy about other things too. Possibly life and death issues. I'm just keeping them on their toes," Tsunade replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It should be done after lunch and we can go to check it out for ourselves."

"I already know what it looks like, Nee-chan," The kitsune replied with a bit of a grin. "I used to hang out around there when I was a kid and the villag-…when things got too much. It's nice. It was actually the exact piece of land I was hoping for."

"Well, then you can show me around. I'm not going to have you living in some mud-hole, even if you like it," The Fifth muttered. "We can go after lunch"

"Speaking of lunch…" Naruto said with a pleading look in his eyes.

"Already? It's barely 10:30!" Tsunade nearly squawked.

"But Nee-chaaaaaan!" The kitsune shamelessly whined, adding the innocent puppy look for good measure.

"…Rotten, cute little half-demon fiend…" The Hokage grumbled to herself. She sighed and said, "Where do you want to eat?"

Naruto's face turned from begging to demonically wicked in a split second.

"Oh, I have an idea…"

* * *

"We have any missions today, Hatake?" Ino asked as she looked up at her sensei. They were standing in the lobby of the mission center. The blonde genin had been waiting impatiently for the jounin to return as without a distraction the events of last night kept churning back and forth in her head. She swung back and forth between elation and a case of nerves so bad she thought the ground would vibrate from her shaking. Her thoughts could essentially be summed up in one sentence.

'I can't believe I used the Chidori on him.'

What had Kakashi lectured her on for hours as he taught her the move? What about all the comradery crap she'd bitched at Sakura about? What about the disgust she'd held for Sasuke after learning that he'd used it on a comrade? What about trying to impress Naruto? Was he going to hold her in the same light as the Uchiha? He said she was 'interesting'… What the hell did that mean? Not 'you're good' or 'you suck' or even 'hey, you're hot' but a 'you're interesting.' How the hell was she supposed to interpret that? Why hadn't he been surprised by her _not _being surprised by his healing ability? Was he going to say something about it? Could he even be harmed? Was her teacher ever going to show up so she could stop eating her mind alive?

Kakashi had stared at his student for several seconds when he came back. The girl was acting weirder than usual and that was saying something.

"Yep," The jounin said cheerfully, pushing his thoughts out of his mind for the time being. Hopefully Ino was too distracted to sense them. "I got our mission right here. There weren't any S-Rank, but I still don't think you're ready for that anyways. There's a reason for the high level after all. But you'll be pleased to know this is a high grade assassination request, directly from the Hokage's office. We're going after a group of three Sound-nins to the east that've been causing trouble with outlying villages. Two of them have displayed unusual Bloodlines, so we're going to have to spy a bit before we attack them. Don't want too many nasty surprises."

Kakashi sweat-dropped when he noticed that his student was ignoring him entirely and muttering something vicious to herself. No respect.

Well, the copy-nin had a simple solution to that. His visible eye rolled into the back of his head as all sorts of semi-deranged and totally perverted thoughts began to go through his mind. For good measure, he changed several of the participants into curvy, blonde-haired, blue-gray eyed teenage girls that were busy molesting several other familiar and willing participants. And vocal. Yes, it wouldn't do to forget the sound effects. He had a lot of practice making up his own soundtrack considering Tsunade-sama had yet to allow Jiraiya-sama to release his Icha Icha audio books in Fire Country. He grinned under his mask as Ino's mutterings slowly trailed off. The genin slowly began to realize just what those thoughts she was picking up were and who they were coming from.

The teen stared at her sensei for several moments as her face grew redder and her jaw dropped lower. Kami, this man was depraved.

"You PERVERT!"

"Now Ino-chan, let's not go for the knives."

"That's it! They're coming off!"

"Quit waving that thing around. You'll put somebody's eye out."

"It's not the eyes I'm aiming for!"

'Well, at least it got her out of her funk,' Kakashi thought while laughing and restraining his violent student at the same time. Fortunately Ino's Bloodline didn't enhance physical prowess in the slightest, so he was able to easily keep her occupied enough to avoid any injuries. That didn't keep the girl from castrating him verbally though. Several battle hardened jounin standing nearby blushed and looked the other way at the obscenities the genin was spewing out.

Really, what were parents teaching their kids these days?

In the midst of their squabbling, Kakashi almost missed Tsunade and Shizune walking by, presumably going out for an early lunch. The jounin had met with the Hokage briefly the day before, though she hadn't been very concerned about the tied up ANBU he and Ino had discovered. The Fifth seemed to know more than she was letting on, but she _was_ the Hokage and Kakashi was just an elite jounin, so it wasn't really his place to pry. He'd done his duty and reported the odd incident, then moved on to ask if the Godaime had heard any news from Jiraiya about the odd seals burned into his hand. The jounin was disappointed to learn that nothing new had popped up. The seals had pulsed again the night before and off and on all this day. He was really getting annoyed with the whole situation. They were happening with enough frequency now that it was getting dangerous during missions. One screwed up jutsu and he could get killed.

And he really didn't want Ino yelling at him for dying on her.

"Hey, what's up?" Said genin asked, slipping under the jounin's headlock when she noticed he wasn't paying attention to her.

"Nothing, it's just…" Kakashi trailed off as he watched Tsunade and Shizune walk away. Why did it feel like something was…off? Tsunade was roaring in laughter at something her student had said. Shizune had a wicked grin on her face, obviously pleased with her own joke. Both of them looked normal, from their clothes to their features. They didn't seem out of the ordinary, but something still seemed odd. There was something familiar about the scene that tugged at the copy-nin's brilliant mind, yet he couldn't place it. Before it could come to him, the two medics had disappeared out front door of the lobby.

"Err, Hatake…You okay?" Ino asked after a couple moments. Her sensei blinked when she waved her hand in front of his face.

"Uh, yeah. I'm fine. So, you all ready to go?" Kakashi asked, his eye turning into a cheerful half-circle. The genin stared at him suspiciously for a moment before shrugging it off.

"Sure, whenever you are," She replied. A good, high level mission would definitely take her mind off the events of last night. If she kept obsessing over that fight then she was likely to wind up weakening her ability to use her Bloodline. It needed a great deal of concentration for even the passive abilities to work right, so she couldn't afford to get lost in her thoughts. Hell, it took her awhile to even pick up on Kakashi's perverted thoughts and he was standing right next to her! At the rate she was going she wouldn't be able to sense anyone nearby no matter how hostile their thoughts were.

Ironically, Ino was so focused on refocusing, that she missed her sensei's thoughts on the odd scene he'd witnessed.

Kakashi wouldn't realize it for some time, but the whole reason why he'd felt such a sense of familiarity was the odd look on Shizune's face. It was even later that he would finally connect the expression with the appropriate face. It was understandable that the jounin would then put the whole mess aside and brush it off as stress from worrying about his seals.

After all, why on earth would Shizune be wearing a shit-eating fox-grin?

* * *

"I can't believe you ate all their ramen," Tsunade said for the thirteenth time as she looked over at the teen walking next to her.

"Yeah, yeah…You were the one who bet me I couldn't do it," Naruto replied as he laced his fingers behind his head and looked up at the sky through the trees overhead. He and the Hokage were walking along a small dirt road that cut through an old cherry tree orchard. Having decimated Ichiraku's ramen supply, they were now heading out to see his new property first hand. Well, he already knew what it looked like, having hid there often as a child when the cold stares of the villagers got too much, but Tsunade was curious and he didn't have anything else to do. Besides, it was nice spending time with her.

"You must've cheated somehow. Maybe the fusion skyrocketed your metabolism…Or maybe you have some space-time jutsu you used on your stomach…Or maybe you have lava in your guts…Or maybe…" Tsunade muttered to herself, occasionally shooting an accusing glare at the blonde teen. Naruto broke out laughing as her ideas got more and more ridiculous. He loved this woman dearly, but he'd be the first to admit the Fifth was a seriously sore loser.

"I won fair and square, Nee-chan. I used to eat myself sick there all the time. Old Man Ichiraku sometimes had to literally roll me back to my apartment," The kitsune said while chuckling at the fond memories. Not even the Kyuubi's vast experience devouring various cuisines (and peoples) around the world could compare to the glory that was Ichiraku ramen.

"Hmph. Ancient-brat," The Fifth grumbled, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at the half-demon.

"Baby-hag!" Naruto shot back as he stuck his tongue out at the medic. He broke off laughing and dashed ahead down the path, a swirl of sakura petals kicking up in his wake. Tsunade stopped for a second, her soft features shifting as a strange, bitter-sweet feeling filled her. Her eyes never left the odd boy-demon as he spun around in circles with his arms out, when he ran up and down a couple trees, or when he started doing cartwheels down the road. He looked so happy here, running around like someone half his age and without a care in the world. How long would this last? How many moments of happiness would he be able to scrape together? She couldn't protect him from everything and he was already at the top of the hit-list of almost a dozen S-Class missing-nins. Would he have a chance at a decent life? Or would he end up just like Nawaki and Dan?

"Nee-chan! Come on! You're getting slow, old woman!" Naruto bellowed from fifty yards down the road. His jab effectively distracted the Fifth from her thoughts and Tsunade quickly dashed after the teen, a look of fury on her face. The kitsune 'eeped' and took off in the opposite direction, doing his best to avoid the wrath of the big sister. The chase didn't last very long. Between the gravity seal and the fact that Tsunade was a Sannin, Naruto was caught in moments.

"Take it back, runt! Say you're sorry!" The Fifth growled as she gave the blonde one hell of a noogie.

"I'm sorry you're an old woman!" Naruto yelled, though it was muffled by the headlock he was in.

"Wrong answer!"

It took close to five minutes before Tsunade squeezed a suitably honest apology out of Naruto and they started walking down the lane again. The kitsune pouted a bit, but soon forgot his defeat as he enjoyed the fresh air and the scent of the sakura blossoms. The Fifth watched his peaceful face for a moment, her worries of not being able to protect him coming back. What the hell could she do? Their small list of allies could do little to help and they had no interest in Naruto anyways. From the Sand, only Gaara had any ties to the kitsune and who knew if that was even a good thing or not. Who on earth could she get as an ally that was powerful, wasn't afraid of missing-nins, and had a strong investment in Naru-

…Oh, duh.

"Naruto," Tsunade casually said, bringing the teen's attention back to her. "What do you think about us making allies with the Ice Village?"

Naruto immediately turned serious and frowned in thought.

"It'd be tricky. It's not so much that they wouldn't want to be our allies, it's just that they have a tradition of not getting involved in any shinobi conflicts. For the most part, all they do is hunt missing-nins. The best you'd probably get from them is a non-hostilities agreement and maybe supply support if we get in trouble during a war," The kitsune said, scratching at the side of his head. He gave another shrug and continued, "They're also eight days travel from us at a dead run. It's not like they can very well send support quickly even if we did get a full alliance."

"I see…" Tsunade neutrally said, forcing herself not to show her disappointment. If they were as powerful as Naruto described, they'd be a very strong asset in the war against Orochimaru and in keeping the kitsune out of the Akatsuki's hands. Perhaps they could work something out anyways, even if it wasn't a full alliance. She did owe them already for taking care of her little brother. Turning to the teen, she said, "Still, what about inviting them to the next chuunin exam? I could meet the Hyougakage in person and we could discuss things face to face."

"I guess…" Naruto slowly said. He gave a bit of a puzzled look at the Hokage and asked, "How are you going to convince him to come to the exam? None of our tests are anything compare to the hell that's the Ice Village exam. I doubt he'd be interested."

"Of course he will," Tsunade said with an evil smirk. "He'll be very interested because of one of the participants."

"And who would…Oh…" The kitsune said, putting the pieces together. He raised an eyebrow and said, "I thought I wasn't even a legal Leaf-nin. You already have me lined up for the chuunin exam? And what about a team? You need a three man team to take the exam."

"Like you'd fail it. Besides, I already have a team in mind for you. And as for your legal status, just give me a couple weeks with the Council. They'll see reason soon enough," The Fifth lightly replied. Her eyes darkened a second later. "If they know what's good for them."

Naruto _almost_ felt a bit of sympathy for the old farts, before remembering that he didn't give a crap what happened to them. The two shinobi continued walking down the road as it left the orchard and went into the deep woods. Even within the city walls, the forests here were thick and old. The kitsune was enjoying staring off into the surrounding greenery so much that he almost missed the odd clump of trees that marked the beginning of his property.

"Wait, here it is," Naruto said, holding his hand up in front of the Hokage. He quickly gestured for her to follow him as he disappeared off the side of the road through a cluster of ferns and bushes. Tsunade watched him go for a moment, then trailed after. The underbrush got thick fast, making it hard to see. Honing in on the kitsune's light rustling, the Fifth pushed her way through the bushes and came out on the other side.

"Nice, isn't it? I found it when I was six after a…Well, it wasn't a pleasant day. I came here off and on till I became a genin," Naruto said when Tsunade came up to stand next to him. The Hokage raised an appreciative eyebrow as the teen gestured across the place in front of him.

They stood at the edge of a long hollow that ran roughly from the southeast to the northwest. It was about three hundred feet across and a thousand feet long. There were only a few large trees within the tiny valley itself, but a thick ring of them surrounded the entire glade giving it an aura of privacy. The trees grew high at the edges, so the only time the hollow was touched by direct sunlight would be about ten to two o'clock during the day. The southern edge of the glade was mostly flat, but the northern edge was lined by a rocky outcrop which formed a small, ten foot high cliff ledge that ran most of the length of the hollow. A small waterfall bubbled over the rocks into a deep looking pool that drained out in a stream that ran to the northwest along the edge of the cliff. Thick, soft grass grew over the ground and the only sound was the rustling wind through the tree tops.

"It's very beautiful," Tsunade whispered, mostly to herself. And Naruto owned all of this. Or he would, when the deed came back. The land plot covered all this and about fifty feet into the forest in every direction beyond the tree line. He'd found a good spot for himself where he could…Err…Wait a sec.

"Naruto, what exactly are you planning on doing here?" She asked, turning to look at the teen.

"That's…a secret," The kitsune replied with a sneaky grin. At the Fifth's look, he shrugged and said, "It's a surprise. I'll show you when I'm done. It shouldn't take more than four or five days. Actually, I should get started soon if I want to have time for training this month."

"…Alright, I have to get back to my office anyways. _But_, I want to see this place the minute you're done. You can come by tonight to pick up the deed. Shizune wants you over for dinner anyways," Tsunade said as she started to walk back through the brush.

"Hey, Nee-chan? You said Ero-sennin wasn't around. You know where he is?" Naruto called after the Fifth.

"He's spying somewhere in Lightning Country. Why do you ask?" Tsunade replied, turning to look back at the teen.

"No reason. Just wanted to be sure he wasn't doing something stupid," The kitsune shrugged dismissively. "See you later, Nee-chan."

Tsunade stared at him for several long moments before a small smile crossed her face.

"I'll tell him you said hello. I'll you see you tonight, Naruto."

The kitsune sighed a little as he heard the Hokage moving away through the brush. Was he really that transparent? Hmph, the old pervert had probably totally forgotten about him in his quest to perfect his kinky novels. Still, he was a little worried about Jiraiya. The man was a magnet for trouble that almost surpassed the crap that regularly came Naruto's way. The Toad-Sannin could take care of himself, but…

Naruto shook his head and started walking towards the center of the hollow. Now wasn't the time to worry about a man who was stronger than 99 percent of the continent.

He had work to do.

* * *

The Sound-nin's scream was cut off in a choked gurgle as Uchiha Sasuke's Chidori enhanced hand slammed right through the man's chest. The white-haired teen held his pose for a moment, then tore his arm free, a geyser of blood splattering over him and the ground. Sasuke barely blinked his Sharingan eyes as the nin fell over dead. For several moments, there was total silence in the courtyard. Then a light groan echoed as the Uchiha's legs wobbled.

Sasuke stumbled over to the nearest steps leading onto the deck that ringed the yard and collapsed. His hair and skin returned to their normal color and the wings retreated into his back. His eyes also returned to their normal ebony. He had burned all his chakra and more, using the Level 2 Curse Seal to extract extra chakra from his body to counter the drain of the Chidori and the Sharingan.

A low chuckle sounded from the pale teen.

Yes, he'd burned all his chakra, but that didn't matter. He had power now. He was killing jounins with regularity, enough that Orochimaru had ordered him to ease up a bit to keep from cutting down their best warriors before they could be of some use. Sasuke could also summon the Level 2 Curse with ease and was well practiced in controlling it (or allowing it to control him.) He could now perform the Chidori five times a day, as long as he used the curse seal. He could almost perform it four times naturally, though he couldn't quite force himself that extra little bit. What did it matter either way though?

He was strong enough to kill his brother now.

Itachi was stronger than any Sannin, as far as Sasuke knew. Certainly, Orochimaru seemed uncharacteristically nervous whenever the Uchiha talked about his brother. Probably why he was so eager to get the Sharingan for himself.

Sasuke snorted. Like he'd ever allow a fool like the Snake-Sannin get his hands on his family's precious Bloodline Limit. It was only a matter of time before he broke Orochimaru's hold on him and when he did, the body switching hermit would die by his hands. Kabuto too. The dark-haired teen was certain he could kill the medic now and that the only thing keeping him from killing their master was the Curse Seal. And when he'd cut down both of them, only Itachi would remain. He'd kill his brother, with or without the Mangekyou Sharingan. After that, none would remain who could challenge him as he resurrected the Uchiha clan.

_**Horrible terror. Swamping mind, eating away at will, pushing in from all sides. Can't breathe. Get away get away get away GET AWAY!**_

Sasuke's teeth clenched as the memory of the worst day of his life gripped him. He counted it higher than both times he'd faced his brother and suffered the Tsukuyomi. It clawed at him in a way that his parents' deaths never had. That was power on a scale he could not and never would be able to comprehend. For once, the Sharingan hadn't protected him from a damn thing. Even worse than being totally helpless was the utterly bitter, _bitter_ irony.

Naruto.

That idiotic little Dead-Last was in that chakra wave somewhere. The very thought of the dobe having _anything_ to do with power on that level made Sasuke nauseas with fury. He was better than the Dead-Last. The stupid, no talent fool. Naruto was always a screw-up and he was always getting in the way. Even when he made himself useful, he still acted like an idiot while rubbing it into Sasuke's face at the same time. The moron just stumbled across jutsu and power left and right without any effort. He actually came close to exceeding Sasuke, though the fight at the Valley of the End proved once and for all who was the better shinobi.

And now the Dead-Last had tapped some power that had made even Orochimaru shudder. Sasuke couldn't allow that.

Panic surged in his mind. He was getting weaker. He had to get stronger. _Had_ to. He needed power. He needed more power than anyone else. He had to be better than everyone. He couldn't risk anyone being better than him. There was no way he could afford it. No one could be allowed to exceed him.

_Especially_ not Naruto.

A ripple of pain radiated from his seal, causing the Uchiha to grab his neck and gasp. All thoughts were driven out of his head as he stood and made his way to Orochimaru's quarters. When his thoughts cleared, his rage boiled at the ease in which the Sannin controlled him. It didn't matter. He was getting power and soon the hermit would realize his mistake.

Power _would_ be his.

* * *

"Allllright…Done," Naruto said to himself as he finished the last marking of the demon seal. He was glad he was done. It was a pain in the ass to keep any cut open long enough to bleed enough to ink a decent sized seal, let alone the behemoth he'd just made. He stood at the edge of a section of burned ground (the kitsune had to clear the grass off to have a surface to write on) in the middle of his hollow, where he had just made a four foot wide seal that was fortunately relatively simple in its design, despite its large size. The less complex it was, the less chance of him accidentally opening a portal to the center of the sun or something.

This seal was going to be the power plant for the home Naruto was going to build here. It would draw energy into itself through both the ground and the plants growing all over the surrounding area. It would refine the energy into chakra, which could then be tapped for other seals. Unused chakra would be made into a form that enhanced plant growth and would radiate back out into the surrounding flora. The plant life's growth would grow faster and stronger from the modified chakra, increasing how much energy the seal could soak up. That meant more energy for the seal to draw on. A rather clever cycle, if he said so himself.

Gathering a ball of demon chakra into his hand, Naruto carefully stepped to the center of the seal, avoiding smearing any lines. He concentrated the energy in his hand and pressed it to the central marking.

The reaction wasn't as cool looking as he had hoped, though that meant it wasn't as chaotic as he'd feared.

The blood markings glowed a fiery red, then burned straight down into the ground and out of sight. Despite not being able to see it, the kitsune knew that the seal lines were changing and concentrating into one glowing orb about fifteen feet underground. After several moments, the seal pulsed and drew in energy from the surrounding forest. As Naruto watched, the grass all over the hollow turned yellow and the leaves on the trees began to wilt. After almost of minute, the orb pulsed again and life flooded back into the flora. More than that, each blade of grass and leaf looked slightly more vibrant than before. Little green tips began to sprout from the blackened patch of ground even as the half-demon watched. Another minute and the seal pulsed again, drawing another crop of energy from the plant life.

Naruto stood up and cracked his neck. Well, that job was done. The flora of the hollow would eventually get used to the back and forth energy flows, so some time in the future the colors would stop changing. The only physical evidence of something odd here would be the unusually robust trees and undergrowth surrounding this place.

Assuming anyone would ever find this place after the next seal the kitsune put in.

Naruto sighed and altered his thumb nail so it was slightly longer and much harder. With a casual flick, he split his index finger open and knelt down to start inking out more seals.

This one was going to take awhile.

…It _did_ take awhile. By the time the kitsune finished the last marking, the sun had long since set and the moon was high in the sky. His good night vision kept him from needing to start a fire to see the seals he was inking, but he still went slow to make sure he did it right. The seal was finally complete and was a whopping fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long. Fortunately, it vaguely resembled a cross, so it wasn't like he'd been forced to fill an enormous oval with tiny little seals. Unfortunately, that was the only time saving part of this seal. He'd constantly had to cut his finger open every five to ten seconds or so, which (if he'd been interested in doing the math) meant he'd cut his finger open over five thousand times so far. Talk about annoying. He'd also eventually using a jolt of demon chakra to kill all the plants within the area he was working on, as they kept growing back and trashing his seal marks whenever he burned them away with a normal fire jutsu. The seeds from the rest of the grass would eventually take root there, but for now he had a large and ugly scorch mark in the middle of his land.

_His_ land.

That thought brought a slight smile to Naruto's face. He'd taken a break during making the second seal to go pick up the deed and enjoy a brief dinner with Tsunade. She'd kept a copy of it, just in case his got destroyed or lost, and had spent the entire meal making not so subtle inquiries about what he was up to out in the woods. The kitsune had taken great delight in teasing the Hokage by dropping little hints that he might be making some sort of undead army or summoning another demon lord or even channeling the Ghost of Icha Icha (Tsunade had belted him through the wall for that one. Some things should not be joked about, as Shizune so sagely put it.) After dinner, Naruto had tucked his deed away and rushed back to his hollow, eager to finish his seal work so he could start his next project.

And now here he was. This was by far the most complicated seal he'd ever done, with the sole exception being the fusion ritual. That thought brought him little comfort.

Naruto took a deep breath and gathered a huge amount of demon chakra into his hand. Activating this seal would drop him down to less than half his total reserves. Hopefully he hadn't fucked anything up, either in the demon seal's design or in his inking. Well, he'd never get anything done standing around worrying about it. Carefully, he stepped up to the edge of the cross shaped seal and laid his palm on the activation mark. A hissing sound echoed through the glade as every line of his inked out blood glowed like fire. For almost a full minute, nothing happened beyond that. The half-demon was starting to get worried that he really had screwed something up when the lines suddenly changed from red to bright blue intermixed with gold. The seal glowed brighter and hummed, its power moving outwards beyond the boundaries of the hollow. There was a momentary pause. The kitsune glanced about, hoping a rift into Hell wasn't about to open up underneath him.

A bending _force_ pulled at every molecule in Naruto's body, twisting his vision and forcing vomit up from his stomach.

The distortion passed after a few seconds (far too long for the half-demon's liking) and by the time the teen was done retching Shizune's meal all over the ground, nothing seemed amiss in the hollow. Naruto stood and wobbled over to the stream to rinse his mouth out, not bothering to take a look at his seal till he got rid of the nasty taste. When he got back to the burned patch of earth, the seal had cooled and faded in brightness. It was only faintly luminescent in the dark night, even to Naruto's sensitive eyes. The kitsune glanced about and noted that nothing was out of place. He leaned down and pressed his hand to the markings and carefully extended his chakra into it.

After a few seconds, Naruto leaned back and muttered, "Damn…It really worked. Hell of a side-effect though."

According to his chakra senses, the seal was working perfectly. Its radius of effect had been fully extended and it had tied itself perfectly into the power seal directly underneath it. The disorientation must have been a direct side-effect from the main action of the seal. The demon seal was designed to distort space around a certain area (in this case, Naruto's hollow) and bend the fabric of reality so that the entire affected region didn't exist to an outsider. Basically, Naruto had just caused a hunk of land to disappear off the face of the earth and the rest of the forest had rushed inwards to fill the gap. So it would seem to an outsider, anyways. On the inside, everything remained normal and he could leave his little pocket space from any point he wanted to. He would need to create an entrance so he could get back inside though. It was designed to ignore natural things (like plants and animals, wind, and the stream) and allow them inside his little world, but not any sentient creatures or chakra laden objects. There were all sorts of powerful illusions interwoven into the spatial distortions, so the odds of anything intelligent being able to find (let alone enter) his hollow were next to nothing.

Just the way Naruto liked it.

The kitsune stood and surveyed his hollow. It was truly his now. He had his little piece of the world where no one could find or harm him. This would be his home and from here he could concentrate on growing strong enough to face the threats that were coming. The Kyuubi had been in the habit of creating 'dens' all over the planet. They were little more than safe-houses where the great youkai could rest and ponder when it grew weary of the rest of the world, but the fox had valued them greatly and Naruto inherited that tendency. Each den had been protected by a near identical seal to the one the kitsune had just used. As far as Naruto knew, they were still undetectable. He had considered trying to find a couple, but decided against it as they held nothing of value. Still, it might be useful if he ever had to hide himself or his adopted family.

Naruto shook his head. Enough pondering. He had work to do.

The kitsune looked up at the sky as he pulled a couple soldier pills out of his side pouch. He quickly munched a couple down and felt some of his tension abate. Naruto rarely used them for the chakra restoration, as they didn't replenish demon chakra. Rather, the half-demon ate them because of the huge store of nutrients and chemical energy inside each pill. He preferred real food, of course, but they were handy in a pinch and far more portable when he was traveling. Right now, after puking his dinner up and losing close to four pints of blood while painting the ground, he was starting to feel the brittle itching that meant his body was gnawing at his fat and muscle reserves. After his experience with atrophy following the encounter with the Akatsuki a year ago, Naruto was careful to avoid such a thing happening to him again.

Feeling his hunger wane, the kitsune was able to focus his attention on the moon and stars. He judged the time to be roughly around midnight, though he wasn't sure exactly. One of the Ice jounin Naruto had worked with taught him how to judge the time based on the star positions, the time of year, and the moon phase. It was far from perfect, but it was handy when he had no other reference.

'Maybe I should have taken a pocket watch from Tinker-Boss' shop,' The teen thought to himself. Perhaps he would send some money and request one the next time he wrote to Tobias. The gnome would probably love the opportunity to handcraft a super durable one just for him. The shop keeper certainly wouldn't mind. Hmm, he'd give it some thought.

Naruto lowered his head from the sky and looked back to his hollow. With a flick of concentration, the air around him exploded and fifty kage bunshins appeared from plumes of vapor. A mental command later and the clones dashed off to work. The kitsune stood with his arms comfortably crossed as he watched his bunshins carefully dig out the lines for a foundation around the space seal. Though the seal was very durable, it would be a good idea to keep it well protected anyways. A few feet next to the seal, another group of clones began to dig out a deep hole, which would eventually become his basement. Still more clones ran off into the forest and outside the seal's area of effect to gather lumber and stone. The woods in and around Konoha were so thick and rich that the half-demon highly doubted he'd have to buy many supplies for his house.

Tobias' shop had been fun, but soon enough Naruto had recovered to the point where he needed to have some extra outlet for his wild energy. He'd followed that one jounin's advice and done some side jobs with the construction and maintenance crews. While working for them, he'd quickly learned exactly how ninjas built houses. That was one thing the Kyuubi certainly hadn't known about. Naruto had first learned how to put a house together the hard way, then he'd learned all the cool jutsu that allowed for shortcuts. He had jutsu to cut wood into perfect boards, to create glass planes from sand, to mold metal into piping and nails…He picked up almost everything they had to teach. For the past five or six months, he'd been working on a blueprint inside his head for the perfect house. It would be a far cry from the shit-hole he used to live in. Depending on how fast his clones gathered supplies, he'd have the entire place built in less than four days.

Naruto grinned a little. He didn't even have to be here for most of it.

With another pop, a new kage bunshin appeared next to him. Flicking his thumb across his finger yet again, the kitsune quickly drew out a familiar sigil on the clone's forehead. Pressing his palm against it, he gave the clone a massive jolt of demon chakra, effectively diminishing most of his reserves.

Ten seconds later, the blood clone was casually reaching into its pocket to pull out and tie its Ice headband across its forehead. Didn't want to accidentally damage the seal and get dispelled, now did it?

"So everything's worked out so far?" The clone calmly asked, much in the same manner it had when Naruto had first created it in the hospital a year ago.

"Oh good, I got you, Naru-kun," Naruto said with a bit of a relieved grin

"Worried about accidentally getting Kyu-sama, right?" The clone replied with a small smile.

"Kami, I hope not," The kitsune said with a bit of a shudder at the thought of his other blood clone. Kyu-Sama was the craziest being he had _ever_ met. That was saying something coming from someone who hung out with Coyote after the spirit had devoured five pounds of psychedelic cacti.

Coyote just got giggly and weird. Kyu-sama, on the other hand, was a total psychopath that managed to exceed even Gaara's temper on a bad day.

"We're based of parts of _your_ personality, remember?" Naru-kun said with a light-hearted grin. It was fun to tease his creator. "You only have yourself to blame for the way he turned out."

"Don't remind me…" Naruto grumbled. There was yet another mental issue to add to his collection. A psychologist would give both legs for the opportunity to analyze the kitsune's head. Said psychologist would also probably die a _very_ rich man too. He shook it off and said to the clone, "Never mind about that. Hopefully the next one I create will turn out better, but we'll worry about that later. For now, I need you to keep up the construction of the house while I start training. I gave you a quarter of my total demon chakra, so you'll have plenty to keep up the work. You have my memories back to when I last created you, right?"

Naru-kun focused on his thoughts for a moment. An extra set of memories rose up from the normal mess that he got from Naruto whenever he was summoned. He briefly skimmed through them, paying only moderate attention to most, though he paused at both the meals at Ichiraku and the fight with Ino.

"Yep. I got them all, Master," The blood clone replied with a confident nod. He greatly enjoyed perusing the new sets of Naruto's memories he got whenever he was recreated. It was like virtual reality. This would keep him occupied while the shadow clones ran about building the house.

Naruto winced at the title and said, "I really wish you wouldn't call me that."

"As you wish," Naru-kun lightly conceded. He swept his hand outwards in a broad path, then yelled in his pseudo-Gai voiced, "Hail the Eastern Lord, Kyuubi no Kitsune! Greatest of the youkai! Strongest of the demons! Scourge of humanity! Most terrible of the Tailed Beasts! Hail Uzumaki Naruto-sama! Loudest ninja of Konoha! Right hand to the Hyougakage! Left hand to the Hokage! Greatest of Tobias-sama's assistants! Artist who created Sexy no jutsu and Harem no-"

"Alright, alright!" Naruto yelled while waving his hands at the clone. He ignored the smug grin on Naru-kun's face. Beaten by his own blasted clone. Pathetic. "Some days you're weirder than Kyu-sama."

"You only have-" The clone began.

"Myself to blame," The kitsune finished with a sigh.

"Ready to transfer them over?" Naru-kun asked, taking pity on his master by changing the subject. He made a simple one-handed seal and held it up.

"Alright," Naruto replied, making an identical seal and holding his hand in front of the blood clone's. A moment passed, then the complex chakra web unbound itself from the kitsune and moved into the bunshin, where it reattached itself to the clone's chakra core. Naruto's chakra returned to him as Naru-kun's chakra divided itself by fifty. It wasn't even a full jutsu, but one day when they had been experimenting with different skills both Naruto and his blood clone had discovered that they could transfer the kage bunshin link between the two of them. That way none of the clones were dispelled. It was handy, especially if the kitsune needed to leave a scene quickly and leave a blood clone wielding a shadow clone army in his place.

In this case, they could keep building his house while he got some much needed training done.

"I'm heading out. I won't be back for awhile," Naruto said as he turned and walked towards the edge of the hollow, where he and Tsunade had first come in.

"Yes, Master. I'll take care of things here," Naru-kun calmly replied, turning away from his creator and surveying the working kage bunshins.

Naruto paused at the edge of the tree and brush line. It would be a good idea to make his entrance seal now. Slicing his finger open yet again, the kitsune kneeled and quickly drew out the preplanned demon seal. It was small, so it took him less than three minutes to make. A bit of demon chakra and a few moments later, a thin path opened up between the trees. Actually, it was more like the trees and brush bent and moved out of the way creating a green tunnel that led out to the dirt road. The kitsune stood and was about to leave when he had to jump out of the way as twenty kage bunshins came running back into the hollow, each carrying fallen logs or small boulders. Apparently they'd been waiting for awhile to get back in.

As the last clone passed him, Naruto again turned to leave when a sharp whistle caught his attention. He glanced back and saw Naru-kun still standing near the foundation. The blood clone tapped his upper right arm. It took the kitsune a moment to get what the clone was trying to tell him.

"Can't believe I forgot about that," Naruto muttered as he pulled the bandage away from his bicep to expose his Flesh Burn seal. He'd had to deactivate it temporarily so his blood wouldn't deteriorate while he made his seals. Leaving it off would be a bad idea though, just in case some Akatsuki spy had tailed him to the village. Rubbing a streak of blood across the seal, Naruto pressed his fingers to it and concentrated. A moment later, the seal briefly glowed red as it reactivated.

The half-demon nodded in satisfaction and gave a brief wave of thanks to the blood clone before he disappeared through the path.

Naru-kun watched his master go for a moment, before glancing back at the kage bunshins. He sweat-dropped when he noticed that the twenty clones that had returned with supplies were now standing around and staring at him.

"Alright you ape-rats, get back to work!" The blood clone roared at the top of his lungs. Every clone jumped three feet in the air and took off, frantically trying to find a task to do. Naru-kun grinned in satisfaction at the response.

He'd always wanted to say that.

* * *

As dawn broke over the Hidden Village of Leaf, some of the slowly awakening inhabitants were witness to a rather strange sight.

And sound.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Crunch! Curses!

Naruto was responsible mostly for the last part as he tried to pull his leg out of the pavement. Several villagers blushed and covered their ears at the obscenities the teen was growling. With a hard yank, the kitsune's leg tore free from the paved street. Unfortunately, he was totally off balance at this point and couldn't stop himself from toppling over on his back. The pavement gave way in a near perfect outline of his body with a massive boom that echoed throughout the street. Every passerby paused to stare at the odd teen, who was trying in vain to dig himself out of his hole.

You could always tell when Naruto was in town.

The kitsune finally gave up and six kage bunshins appeared around him. They quickly hauled him up and out of the depression, then pulled/dragged him into a nearby alley. Naruto willed them to lean him up against the side of a building before he dispelled the lot. For several moments, he simply panted and caught his breath, while feeling the painful itching throughout his body that meant his dozen or so broken bones were mending back together.

Shit, maybe 5Gs was a bit too much.

During his training in the Ice Village, Naruto had set his gravity seal to 2Gs and left it alone. After a month he didn't even notice he had it on anymore. A normal human would suffer from neural deterioration from the constant extra force on the brain, but the kitsune's regeneration handily negated that little problem. Combined with the Spirit Bind seal and the huge amount of bizarre training he'd done under the Hyougakage's tutelage, Naruto's body was far stronger than it had ever been in his life, even when using the Kyuubi's power. The gravity seal was nice in that it affected every cell of his body, so every part of him got stronger from the constant strain rather than select parts of his limbs had he been using weights. It also didn't require bulky and uncomfortable metal weights that needed to be added or removed during a fight. It was an incredible training tool.

A squeal of rending metal echoed in the alley as the drain grate he was standing on gave out from his magnified weight. Naruto's feet tore through until the ground was even with his lower shins. Yeaaahhh...5Gs was way too much.

The kitsune quickly added up some figures in his head. He weighed 145 lbs normally, so with 2Gs he weighed 290 lbs. At 5Gs, he weighed 725 lbs. According to one of the science texts the Kyuubi had once read, gravity was constantly accelerating. If that was the case, then whenever he took a step…Well, the numbers were beyond him but it was no wonder he was breaking the ground open everywhere he went. He could burn chakra to buffer the impact, but there was only so much that trick could handle. Not to mention, he was getting pretty dizzy with this thing on so high. It had been fine for the most part when he was doing pushups and sit-ups in the woods during the early morning hours, but after awhile even his healing factor was having a hard time keeping up.

Decision made, Naruto pulled up his shirt and moved away the bandages covering his chest while cutting his finger open. Touching it to the evil wagon wheel seal, he removed several spokes off the marking. Instantly, his head cleared and a huge load lifted off his shoulders. The kitsune sighed in relief. 3Gs was much better, though still rough enough that it would make training hard. 435 lbs would do for now.

Naruto yanked his feet out of the destroyed drain and started walking down the alley. His boot-sandals still made loud clunking noises, but he wasn't breaking through the pavement anymore. He quickly decided to do his jogging through the back ways and side streets, to avoid drawing any more attention to himself. He didn't want people whispering about 'the demon' so soon after he got back home. The half-demon took a deep breath and started jogging again, moving at a considerably slower pace than he was used to. He made decent time though as he moved through his route of alleys and back streets that meandered throughout Konoha.

Naruto's training idea was pretty simple. He did simple exercises, such as pushups, sit-ups, and jogging. The gravity seal made it harder to move, added more resistance to every movement, and constantly deteriorated his muscles at a higher speed. Since muscles get stronger as they heal back from damage, Naruto's regeneration allowed him to constantly enhance the tissue fibers even as the seal worked to beat them down. He also found that his bones were getting harder and denser over time, though at a much slower rate and only if he kept a great deal of calcium in his diet. Overall, his body was constantly growing tougher, though he was surprised at the slow change in his physical appearance. His muscles grew stronger, but not much larger. He didn't think too much of it though. It was probably just some weird side-effect of the Unlimiter.

To keep himself from going through the ground or damaging public property too much, Naruto used chakra to cushion his heavy body from the surrounding environment. It was similar to water or snow walking, though don't-break-the-ground walking didn't have as much of a ring to it. The Spirit Bind seal constantly restricted and rippled his chakra, forcing him to burn more and adapt to the random changes within his inner coils, making the simple task of chakra buffering much harder. It was great for enhancing both his chakra reserves and control, but it also caused him to screw up a bunch. There was only so much cushioning he could do between the two restraining seals.

With both tough seals on, Naruto didn't have to do any extremely advanced training exercises or obstacle courses to get the results he wanted. That suited him fine, as it was quicker doing simple workouts. He needed to get several units of the fox's power under his belt as fast as possible. Without any real idea when Akatsuki would next strike, the kitsune didn't have time to mess around with fancy training techniques. He'd work on advanced fighting styles after he'd absorbed a decent hunk of the demon chakra reservoir. He wouldn't feel safe until he had at least twice the demonic energy he had right now.

Over the course of several hours, the blonde teen managed fours circuits of the route he'd picked that meandered throughout the village. It was getting close to ten in the morning when he tripped in an alley near a park and hit the ground with a resounding boom. He grimaced as several of his ribs broke from the impact. After a moment, he stirred and spit out some bits of pavement along with a tooth. He eyed the busted crown for moment before shrugging.

It would grow back eventually.

Rolling over onto his back used up far more energy than should be legal. Naruto stared at the blue sky for awhile as he panted and regained his strength. Somehow, the wind and sunshine relaxed him enough that he almost dozed off right where he lay. A smattering of whispers and hushed voices caught his attention before he totally fell asleep though. Turning his head, he realized that he was actually pretty close to the playground where he used to sit by himself every day. The voices were coming from a small group of shy looking kids (they couldn't be more than five or six years old) who were watching him with unveiled curiosity and wide eyes. They 'eeped' when they noticed him looking back at them and tried to turn away, though they didn't seem to be doing a good job of it.

Naruto couldn't help but smile at the sight. His smile was hesitantly returned by the kids, who took it as permission to stare at him with open awe.

_Twenty minutes later…_

"Whooo!"

Naruto grunted as his foot hit the ground with enough force to shatter the pavement (and part of his heel.) The kid sitting on top his sandal laughed in delight at the destruction the kitsune was wrecking on the concrete surrounding the playground. After chatting with the kids for awhile, he'd offered a piggyback ride to one of them. Naturally, the others refused to stand for this and demanded rides for themselves. To divert the impending argument about who would go first, Naruto made the mistake of offering to give them all rides at the same time. He now had a kid sitting on each foot and wrapped around the accompanying shin, a kid sitting on his shoulders, one hanging off each arm, and about three or four healing fractures in his legs from the greatly magnified weight.

"Haha! Break the path over there, Naruto-nii-chan!" The one on his shoulders yelled in delight.

'Pfft, kids,' Naruto thought, though he grinned at the children's excitement.

"You got it, runt," The kitsune said as he plodded over towards the concrete path that led up to the swing set. He'd managed to bust his way through about twenty more feet of cement when his right ankle gave out with a sickening crack. Naruto's eyes widened as he toppled forward against his will.

"Crap! Everybody-off-everybody-off!"

His yelling and the follow up boom totally drowned out five cracking noises. As the dust settled, Naruto was revealed lying in a large hole in the pavement that jaggedly outlined his body. Five kage bunshins stood around him, each holding a squirming child in their arms.

The kitsune managed to lift his head up long enough to say, "I think that's enough for today guys," before he went mostly limp.

"That was soooo cool, Aniki-san!" One of them yelled as the clones set them down. Naruto smiled at her and dug a gashed hand out of the concrete long enough to wave goodbye as the group moved off, chattering excitedly about what a cool guy he was. When they were busy playing again, the half-demon sent a mental command to his clones to lift him up out of the crater he'd made. He'd reached his limit for the day. All he wanted to do was go back to the hollow and sleep for as long as he could.

Kage bunshins were such handy things, Naruto thought later as one of his clones gave him a piggyback ride down the road that led to his hollow. He grinned at the thought and relaxed a little, enjoying the opportunity to look about the beautiful land that surrounded his home. _His_ home.

It was good to be back.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**General:** It's up. A week and a day later than I had hoped, but oh well. It's also four pages shorter than the last chapter, though it doesn't really matter. Nothing major for me to rant about this time (I have a blog now to bitch about the turn the series has taken, so I won't waste as much space on the stories.)

Just as a note to people who want to download this as a text file on their PCs: You might want to wait a few days before you do that or come back in a week or so and replace your file again. The reason is there are often errors that I miss the first time through and that reviewers point out to me. I usually do a couple touch ups and replace the chapter after a couple days. It's nothing big at all, but just something to consider.

To the reviewers who pointed out my faulty Japanese in the last chapter…Most of you did it politely and I appreciate that. I certainly don't pretend to know the language, but in honor of the general theme I usually give a Japanese name for the jutsu or seal and then use the English translation from then on. Like I said in Chap. 1, I don't know Japanese and I don't pretend to. Some people like to throw in sections of Japanese dialogue and stuff in their stories; I don't. I'm American, not Japanese. Most of the readers here are American or from the UK, so I won't give anybody migraines as they desperately search for a translation either on the net or at the bottom of the story as they try to figure wtf the character just said. Again, most of you were quite polite in pointing out my error and I thank you for that. When I say most, I mean one individual was downright condescending in his/her review. Dude, the day I accept help from someone who laughs at an honest mistake is the day I start writing SasuNaru.

**NOT** going to happen.

So, as a note I'll continue to give a general Japanese translation for jutsu and seal names the first time I show them (just as homage to Japan), then I'll stick with the English names from then on. If I screw it up, by all means let me know, though I ask you to do it politely. Thanks in advance!

Moving on, it's come to my attention that there are many individuals abusing the reviews for little more than their own amusement. By many, I mean like less than ten. Still, to avoid it becoming an increasing problem, I'm giving the same warning I did in the reviews: do not use the reviews for my story as your personal message board. You want to yell at me personally, do it on my live journal or email me. The links are right there on my profile. The reviews are just that: reviews. Use them to criticize or praise the story, not to bitch at me or each other. Don't bother with anonymous reviews, as I'll just delete them from now on. Logged reviews will be blocked and/or reported to the abuse team. Fair warning to everyone.

Feel free to say anything you want about the story. That's what reviews are for, after all. You have a problem with me personally, however, get to me through other channels. I'm not hiding from anyone. My email is right there on my profile. Use it and stop filling the reviews up with garbage.

To the 99 percent that are not the abusers in question, don't worry about this and don't let it keep you from saying your opinion on 'Foxhound.' I ain't going to bust someone for criticizing the story, no matter how bad the review is. That's all I have to say on the matter.

On a different note, thanks to everyone who responded to the calendar question I asked in the last chapter. Since most of the answers were the same (nobody has any idea, cause Kishimoto doesn't want to tell us for some reason) I'm just going to make up my own calendar for Foxhound. The year is 1012 P.C. (Post-Cataclysm) and the year system was started immediately after a World War (Three or Four) decimated major civilization around the globe. The war broke out roughly between 2050-2150 AD, so the Naruto world is a ways into the future. Just FYI.

Oh yeah, Naruto will **NOT** be using a Desert Eagle in this fic. I thought it would be a fun cameo and useful to reinforce the future feel of the world.

Ah, the gnome question. To stave of reviews from D and D freaks yelling at me that I got it all wrong, I'll say up front that I used artistic license on it. I _know _the facts are probably off. Don't worry about it. I pulled various ideas and stuff from all over the place when I came up with Tobias and Marion. Thought it'd be kind of cool. Oh, and brownie points to anyone who knows where the character Oswald Fiddlebender is from (no cheating **Telosphilos, **haha :)) To those who figured it out, yeah I'm a nerd. Bite me.

I'll explain what the creature imprisoned in the Hidden Night is in a later chapter. It's not from any other fandom, it's just something I made up.

To anyone who wants to ask me a question and get it answered sooner than the next story, just go to my lj. The link is on my profile. If you leave an anonymous message there, please give me your profile or penname so I know who I'm talking to.

**Jutsu: **Not too many this time. That'll change, chapter 8. I decided to include an overall description of demon seals, as I recently realized I never fully explained them.

**Tenma Fuu** (Demon Seal) (S Rank, due to a law passed by Tsunade) Reality warping seals created and fueled by demonic power.

Demon seals are a method to rewrite and alter parts of reality using chaos. They're powerful, but double-edged.

Good side: Because of the chaos factor, they can do virtually anything. The user can get almost anything they want done as long as their seals are detailed enough and enough chakra is pumped into them.

Bad side: Because of the chaos factor, they can do virtually anything. They're unstable in their creation and the slightest mistake can cause a totally different result from the one intended. Ex: It'll open a portal to Hell or Heaven; it'll summon a demon lord; it'll suddenly create an ever growing tree; it'll make an entire town spring up around you; it'll turn you into a three-headed chicken; etc. (Note: I'm not joking about the chicken part.)

Every time a demon seal is first created, there's always the chance that it'll go haywire. This is because of the chaos factor and it can't be helped. On the plus side, once they're made they're stable, so Naruto doesn't have to worry about pigeons coming out of the seals on his body or something silly like that. If most of the extra variables are worked out, then there's usually about a one to five percent chance of a chaos misfire.

As a rule of thumb, it's not a good idea to make demon seals for combat or to build a seal specifically as a weapon of some sort. Combat and weapon type situations contain a complex amount of variables and equations that a chaotic seal will totally screw up. In other words, rather than a one to five percent chance of a misfire, there will be a thirty to forty percent chance. That's NOT good. The risks far outweigh the potential benefits of a demon based superweapon. Best to let the seals create something else that can be used as a weapon, like the blood clones. Altering only a few variables is far safer than screwing around with dozens.

Demon seals are created through a complex set of formulas known only to demon lords (great and lesser lords, though only the great lords have the perfect formulas.) The user starts with a concept and slowly works through it, eliminating as many undesired variables as possible to minimize a chance of it going wrong. Because of this, each seal is highly customized to a single situation. Every demon seal serves one purpose and one purpose only (ie. The seals that cloaked the Kyuubi's dens are similar, but not identical to each other or to the seal cloaking Naruto's hollow.) The seals must be inked in blood and only a demon, someone with demonic lineage, or someone who signed a contract with a demon can use them. Demon chakra is the only energy that can activate them, though they can support themselves from other sources after they're created.

**Space Seal**: A seal that distorts time-space around a given area, making the area of effect disappear from the perspectives of anyone outside it. An individual can leave at any place from the inside, though only an entrance seal can allow someone to enter and only at a single point. From outsider's view, the land is totally gone and everything else rushes in to fill in the void. In the middle of a city, this would be hugely noticeable, but in the forest only an Indian tracker could tell the difference. Complex illusions cover the evidence of the space distortion, creating an almost impenetrable 'hidey-hole.' This seal requires a large and constant source of chakra to stay active. The gravity distortion when it first goes active will almost certainly make you puke your guts out if you're inside the blasted thing.

**Power-Plant Seal:** A seal that draws in energy from the surrounding environment, converts it to chakra (which can be drawn on by other seals at that point), and then altered into a different form of energy that encourages cellular growth and radiated back outwards. The primary power source is plant life, though it can be modified to draw on solar and geothermal energy, if such a source is available. The seal draws life force away from the plants, then sends the excess back at them in a from that enhances there growth. Because of this, the plants eventually get used to the back and forth pull and grow more robust and faster than before. In a heavily forested area, this seal generates a LOT of power and can be used to run several other demon seals as well as electricity and heat for a house (within reason, like lights and a stove.)

**Entrance Seal:** A seal that distorts space-time and stabilizes it into a small tunnel, allowing passage between two different space zones. Basically, it's a door that can only be opened with the blood of the person who made. There's a small spot on the outside of the field that Naruto (or one of his blood clones) streaks with a drop of blood. It activates and opens the tunnel. It can be altered to accept blood of other people to allow entrance, though only the creator (Naruto) can do this. A simple, but handy seal.

**Reviews:** I already bitched about this above, so I won't go into any further detail about that topic. Just to restate from the last chapter, I'm getting WAY too many reviews a chapter to respond to each one, so don't be insulted if I don't answer yours. If you really want a response, then mention it in your review (again don't be insulted if I can't get to it. It's nothing personal.) If you want to get a hold of me quicker, then email me or leave a message on my lj. I don't bite much, I promise.

(Reviews removed)

And that's all I can (or in some cases care) to respond to. Thanks to everyone who reviewed intelligently (or at least politely.) If I didn't mention you, don't take it personally. I read every review, good or bad, so I did see yours and I do appreciate the thought. Thank you all once again for the reviews (over 500, woot!)

**Next Chapter:** Pfft, after the crap I got last time, does anyone think I'll post a date? I promise it'll be out in two weeks or less. That's all I can say. Later.


	8. I'm TNT! I'm Dynamite!

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: Naruto relaxes in a training ground after his fight with Ino and thinks about the places he's been to the last year (specifically Gaara's hideaway and the Hidden Village of Night.) He joins up with Tsunade later and buys a large hunk of land, which he almost immediately begins construction of his house on. He summons the same Blood Clone he used to escape the hospital a year ago to take over the kage bunshin construction crew while he goes off and trains in the village. He has some trouble with his gravity seal settings and is carried home by one of clones as a bloodied mess.

**Chap. 8 – "I'm TEE-EN-TEE." "I'm Dy-noh-mite!"**

"Where is he?"

"So the seals haven't found the brat yet?"

"Would I ask if they had?"

"Guess not. I haven't seen the Kyuubi since the last time we tangled in Wind Country. Hell, I haven't even found a trace of him except for a couple dead Sound-nins here and there, which doesn't really mean much. In all honesty, anyone could be going after them. Orochimaru hasn't been making any friends recently."

"…This is very displeasing."

"No shit. I barely got to test my sword."

"I wasn't talking about that, fool. The Kyuubi must be located. All our goals rest on the strongest of demons."

"Yeah, you're right."

"What about Shukaku and its vessel?"

"I dunno…The Sand-brat has been acting weird for awhile. I heard he turned down a promotion to Kazekage a few months ago."

"_Really_? Interesting…Who's the next choice?"

"They're keeping the same Kage for now. Probably hoping ole Gaara'll come around sooner or later."

"They want a psychopath as their leader so badly?"

"Ha! I've seen their Kazekage. _Anyone_ is better than him. He's always acting twitchy and looking over his shoulder like Orochimaru is gonna kill him any second. Hell, he's barely stronger than a jounin anyways. The Sand needs someone with power and the black-eyed runt has it in spades. Who wants a weakling for a leader during a time of war?"

"True…Tell me, did you find out where he disappeared to a year ago?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure he was with the Kyuubi-brat. Gaara came back to the Sand Village not two days after I ran into Naruto. I'd bet my blade they were together, though I got no idea what they were doing."

"…That's bad."

"What?"

"Kyuubi and Shukaku together. That's _very_ bad for our cause."

"…I don't get it."

"United they stand; divided they fall. Tell me Tsurugi-kun, how powerful is the Kyuubi-vessel?"

"Kid's good, especially for his age. Even without the demon, he may be a match for one of us in a few years."

"And Gaara?"

"…Even _I_ don't want to fight him if I can avoid it. I could win, but I'd probably lose an arm or a leg in the fight. He's _good_. He has power, skill, and a sharp mind. He's still young too, so there's no telling how strong he'll get in the long run."

"Now what do you think of fighting the two of them together? If they were allies? Even at their current skill and power level."

"…"

"Now imagine two or three years from now. Both of them highly trained, used to working as partners, and with the powers of demons at their beck and call. Imagine fighting them then."

"…Half of us would get killed bringing them down."

"_If_ we won. There would be a strong chance we wouldn't emerge victorious. Not even Itachi-kun could beat them and he's our greatest warrior. If Uzumaki Naruto and Gaara of the Sand stand together, all our work will be for nothing."

"Alright, so what do we do?"

"Remove one of the links in the chain. We don't know where the Kyuubi-vessel is, so…"

"Take out Gaara. Got it. I'll get on it right away."

"Don't be hasty in this. We _cannot_ afford to fail. The Kyuubi-vessel isn't in the Sand Village, so we don't need to attack immediately. We need to act quickly, but not rashly. Scout him. Analyze his movements and his skills. Plan for _every_ contingency. Then move in. Take him alive if possible, but kill him if necessary. The Nine-Tails is the real prize."

"Okay, I'll leave immediately. We'll know every detail about him down to how loud he farts by the time we're ready to attack. If the Kyuubi-brat shows up while we're scouting, then we can nab 'em both."

"Do it. And Tsurugi-kun…Take two others with you."

"_Three_ Akatsuki agents? You _are_ taking this seriously."

"I am. There is no room for failure, Tsurugi-kun. _None_."

"…Got it."

* * *

"Master, you need to move. You're in the way of the clones."

Naruto slowly opened his eyes and stared at the bright blue morning sky. A shadowy form leaned into his vision, obscuring the sun's rays. When his eyes adjusted, the kitsune noticed it was his own face looking down at him.

"Naru-kun…wha' th' hell?" The teen growled, still in a sleepy haze.

"I said, you need to move. The kage bunshins are ready to build the bathing room and you're sleeping in the spot it's supposed to go," The blood clone said with an amused smile. "Or do you want us to totally alter your blue prints?"

"No, no…I'm up, dammit…" Naruto grumbled and sat up. He felt a familiar brittle headache building up behind his eyes. His mind wasn't reacting well to waking up even earlier than usual. Worse than just lack of sleep, he'd accidentally triggered several large memories of the Kyuubi the day before, adding to the strain of undigested information in his brain. Damn, he needed to mediate or he'd be a complete mess.

A light cough caused him to look up at Naru-kun, who inclined his head to the side. Glancing over, Naruto noticed a crowd of fifteen clones standing impatiently, each holding boards, nails, and other assorted carpentry items. He forced himself to his feet and shrugged at the lot of them before walking off. His blood clone trailed behind him as the kitsune moved towards the entrance seal.

"Are you alright, Master? You didn't even rest a full four hours," Naru-kun asked, his concern for his creator obvious.

"I'll live. Don't worry about it, Naru-kun. Anyways, I'm going jogging through the village. You have enough chakra for about seven or eight hours?" Naruto asked as he dismissed his clone's worries.

"Yes, plenty actually," The blood bunshin immediately replied, though the way he shifted his feet a little made his lie rather apparent.

"Bullshit. Come here," Naruto firmly ordered, pointing at the ground in front of him.

"But Master, you need to conserve your reserves. You've been burning through a lot these last coup-" Naru-kun's protest was cut off when his creator pushed up his Ice forehead protector.

"I haven't given you any juice since I first made you and you must be running low. I'm not about to have you fall apart. The clones would disappear, we'd get further behind, and I might accidentally summon Kyu when I tried to recreate you. And Kami knows _that_ would be a nightmare. Now hold still," The kitsune ordered as he bit his thumb. He quickly streaked a line of blood across Naru-kun's forehead and held his palm to it.

The huge surge of demon chakra completely took the blood clone off guard. The power flooded his inner coils, overloading them and bursting through his body. A searing aura of demonic fire erupted across his entire form.

"M-Master…h-how much did you give me?" Naru-kun stammered as he felt more chakra flow through his system than he ever had in his existence. He looked at his flaming hands for several moments. The dark fire was burning from inside his body right up through splits in his flesh, though no actual damage was being done to him overall. What was this? Naruto's demon aura never acted like this when he called it up. Was it because he was a clone? Why did the fire seem to…draw him in? The flames felt so disturbingly _natural_.

With a supreme effort of will, Naru-kun forced the fire back inside him and exerted his chakra coils to contain the huge volume of energy. After a few seconds, the rips in his flesh sealed as if they'd never been.

"I gave you about two-thirds of my demon chakra. You should last at least a couple days, even with the kage bunshins draining you," Naruto replied, raising an eyebrow at the strange reaction his clone had to the chakra, but choosing not to comment on it.

Odd. He'd never set a clone on fire before. That was a first even for him.

"I…What about you? Don't you need it to heal?" Naru-kun asked, a worried look on his face.

"Nah. It doesn't take much to heal cuts or broken bones. It's organs and missing body parts that take a huge toll on me. I don't think I'll get wounded that badly just from training. I hope…Anyways, I'll see you later. Keep working on the house," The kitsune said as he walked off and opened the entrance seal.

"Y-Yes Master! Don't worry, I'll take care of it!" The blood clone called, almost too late for Naruto to hear. Naru-kun was still more than a little shocked by the volume of energy he'd received. As the entrance closed, the clone stared down at his hands which seemed to pulse with a faint red glow. "…Weird."

Naruto stepped out onto the dirt road and immediately began to jog towards town. He grimaced a little as his headache painfully reminded him of its presence. Maybe he could stop at a drug store and get something for it…No, that wouldn't work. His body would just break the medicine down long before it ever reached his brain. His high metabolism and healing factor were an innate defense against poisons and infectious matter, but the price was only the absolute strongest drugs had any effect on him. Even the ones that could affect him didn't last longer than a couple minutes, making medicine almost useless on him. Granted, medicine was usually a moot point anyways in his case, but there had been rare occasions when he'd totally burned through his demon chakra and would have welcomed a good painkiller.

Uhg, another annoying factor of the Devil's Due.

The kitsune jogged in silence the whole way. It had been three days since he'd started his training and he was already feeling some boosts in his strength. 3Gs was nothing to sneeze at. It was unlikely he'd totally get used to the weight before June, but that didn't bother him. 4Gs could wait for awhile. His chakra control could barely handle his weight as it was. He still occasionally busted through the ground, though that was usually only when he did a jump or something acrobatic. That damn gravity acceleration constant always caught him off guard when he least expected it. Light movements were fine, but anything that involved more than a foot drop usually wound up with him lying in a crater and half dead.

Naruto smiled a little as he left the cherry orchard and got into the outskirts of the village. It wasn't yet noon, so he might be able to finish jogging fast enough to beat the lunch crowds and eat at Ichiraku unimpeded (he refused to believe that business was going slow for them.)

The half-demon managed about three circuits of his chosen route before he ran out of breath and stopped to lean up against a power pole to pant. He groaned a little and rolled his shoulder to work out a couple kinks. He couldn't wait till his bedroom was built and he could have a decent place to sleep. The ground in the hollow was nice and soft but he still wanted a real bed to sleep in. Or something of the sort. Maybe a well placed set of seals could make a very comforta-

A loud growl startled him out of his thoughtsand he turned to look into a baleful canine eye.

Naruto glanced up and noticed that the alley he was standing in ran directly behind a large building that had a series of kennels built into the back. A high chain link fence made the place look almost like a prison yard, but the lack of razor wire negated that impression. The building itself was rather friendly looking, so it didn't seem like too nasty of a place. A small sign above the door said 'Inuzuka Veterinary Clinic.' There was probably a larger one out front.

The growl had originated from a large, wolf-like dog that wore an eye patch of all things. It stood just inside the chain link fence and was giving him a series of snarls that occasionally exposed its teeth. Several other large and imposing dogs were gathering behind the leader. They too seemed to dislike him and several started growling louder. The leader gave the impression that it would've already attacked the kitsune had the fence not been there.

_Dogs_.Naruto's eyes narrowed. He did _not_ like _dogs_.

The teen walked casually up to the fence and looked down at the lead do-…_mutt_. The one-eyed dog tensed and growled even more viciously, with the other canines following its lead. Naruto leaned down till he was almost eye level with the fleabag and met its gaze evenly. He didn't activate his terror effect. He didn't yell or otherwise make a huge amount of noise. Hell, he didn't even lay a finger on the canine.

What he did do was carefully bare one sharp canine and let out a low, brassy rumble that seemed to crawl menacingly through the air. It reverberated through the eardrums of the gathered mutts and echoed for an unnatural time after the kitsune closed his mouth.

Every single dog immediately backed up and whimpered at the sound. The lead dog backed away the slowest, though it was more to keep from turning its back on a very dangerous creature rather than out of bravery. Its nerves finally broke and it ran to the back door of the vet clinic, pawing and whining to get the attention of whoever was inside. The rest of the pack followed and they had a loud clamor built up in moments.

"Bah," Naruto grumbled and turned to walk away. He'd only gotten a few feet when a voice called out for him to stop. Glancing back, he noticed an attractive woman in her early twenties standing in the yard and moving towards him. The pack followed, but made sure to keep her in between them and the teen with the unnatural scent.

"What the hell did you do to our dogs?" The woman demanded, glaring at him and exposing unusually long canines. Her facial features, her hair color, and her attitude seemed familiar to the kitsune, though he had the damnedest time placing them. It was the sight of strange red tattoos on her cheeks clicked it in his head.

Kiba. This chick looked like Kiba. Too young to be his mother though. She was probably his sister or a cousin. The wind shifted a little and carried her scent towards the half-demon.

Uhg, she looked like Kiba and smelled like _dog_. Any attractive qualities she had (like her appealing figure) were immediately lost to Naruto as he instinctively put his hand to his nose and backed up a step. She smelled far better than her relative, but that didn't say much. _Akamaru_ smelled better than Kiba. Naruto's sense of smell had greatly improved after the fusion and he was easily able to pick out different odors from a distance like they were right next to him. She likely smelled just fine normally. It was probably just the scent of the mutts around her that had rubbed off when they pawed all over the woman, but it was still enough to raise the kitsune's hackles.

"I didn't do shit to them. They growled at me and I growled back. Not my problem if I'm better at it," Naruto snapped in annoyance.

"They wouldn't threaten anyone unless they had a damn good reason," The Inuzuka woman sharply replied as she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Who are you?"

"None of your business," The kitsune immediately answered, his features turning menacing.

"Actually, it is," The woman said as she jumped to the top of the fence and flipped into the alley. She took a very casual stance that would have fooled any inexperienced ninja with how natural it looked. "My name is Inuzuka Hana and I'm a chuunin of this village. Identify yourself or I'll take you to the Tower. The Hokage would be pleased to have a captured intruder."

To her surprise, Naruto busted out laughing.

"Gonna play it like that, huh? Fine then," The kitsune said after a couple moments of chuckling. "I doubt the Hokage gives a crap what I'm up to. My name is Uzumaki Naruto and I'm either a genin or a missing-nin, depending on how far along Tsunade-nee-chan is with the Fire Council."

"Uzumaki? Who're your par…Oh, no," Hana whispered, her eyes widening in fear. The Kyuubi-vessel!

She'd been six when the beast had attacked and technically she wasn't supposed to know about it. Her father had died fighting it and during the mourning period her mother had let slip some sensitive information that one of the family dogs overheard. While Hana had comforted the canine later, the dog had repeated everything it had heard. When she asked her mother about it, they'd gotten into a huge argument. Eventually, Sandaime was informed and he'd impressed on the young girl the need for utmost secrecy regarding Naruto. She'd trusted the old man and hadn't spoken a word to anyone, even after her brother had been defeated by the blonde boy during a chuunin exam a couple years back.

It had been rather nerve wracking, the thought of her father's killer trapped inside such an innocent boy who walked around in the open constantly. Sandaime had said that the demon was sealed and couldn't break free, but that was little consolation when a family member fought its vessel. Inuzukas didn't seem to have much luck where the Kyuubi and its container were concerned.

And here he was, the demon-vessel himself standing in front of her and scaring the shit out of the family dogs for some reason.

"I see my _reputation_ is already known. Aren't you kind of young to have survived the fox?" Naruto dryly asked. Having spent a lifetime on the receiving end of either hateful or terrified stares, it wasn't hard for him to identify why the woman took an involuntary step back and tightened her stance. As casually as possible, he loosened the bandages covering his chest. He'd gotten in the habit of leaving his shirt at the hollow and only wearing his orange vest while training, since the days were warm for early May. Fortunately, that made it easier to get to his gravity seal. The kitsune didn't want to fight, but he would if he had to. He and Kiba didn't get along much, but he did respect the boy's fighting ability. If his relative was anything like him, then she was a powerful fighter as well.

"I…Well, yes, I do know about it, though I wasn't there. And did you say Tsunade-_nee_-_chan­_?" Hana asked incredulously. This guy was a demon-vessel _and_ the Fifth's brother?

"Yeah, I did. Nee-chan lost her little brother a long time ago and as for me…Well, I've never had anyone, so it all works out," The kitsune said, while casually pulling away another bandage. He still didn't trust himself in a fight with such a high gravity field weighing him down. As an older ninja, she was probably faster Kiba. If that was the case, then she could run circles around him before he could so much as raise a fist.

"Oh…" The vet said with a bemused expression. Somehow it had never occurred to her that the demon-vessel had a family…or didn't, as the case may be. "Fitting. I should've expected you to know about family loss."

"…Let me guess, I killed your father or mother or aunt or uncle or fourth cousin six times removed through your hermaphrodite grandparent and you hate my guts for it. Ring a bell?" Naruto calmly asked. He felt himself relax as he managed to expose part of his right chest and the gravity seal. Hoping it looked natural, he crossed his arms to keep one hand close to the marking. A quick drop of blood and he'd be good to go.

"Father, actually. And you beat the living crap out of my brother right before the Sound invasion," Hana said, her confusion fading as her anger returned.

"Really? Well, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about your father. Believe me, I know what it's like to grow up without one. As for your brother…He had it coming," Naruto said, his face genuinely sympathetic about the Kyuubi killing her parent, though it shifted into a wicked grin at the memory of his clone combo beating down Kiba. So this woman _was_ his sister…The family resemblance was quite strong, though he had to say she definitely got the better genetics as far as looks (and body odor) went.

Hana wasn't sure exactly how to respond to the first statement and she had to admit the second statement had some truth in it (she loved her brother, but his ego was as large Akamaru was short.) Instead, she chose to go with her original question, "So are you going to tell me why you're hanging around here or am I going to have to put you under arrest?"

"I was just passing by and, like I said, your…_animals_ started making noises at me. I made better noises back. They chickened out. End of story," The kitsune evenly replied. He felt a nasty little comment take shape in his head and he carefully cut his finger to deactivate the gravity seal. He couldn't resist making a crack and he would need the lightened load to escape. "The one-eyed mutt seemed to have the real beef with me. Just out of curiosity, is it a bitch?"

"Yeah, why?" The veterinarian said with narrowed eyes.

"Well, some people say pets are like their owners. I see it's true in this case," Naruto said with a wicked fox-grin. He pressed his finger to the seal and for a moment he felt utterly weightless. The change in gravity felt that different..

The gears in Hana's head visibly turned as she made the connection and figured out the teen's barb. Her eyes gleamed in fury as she leapt towards the kitsune, drawing a kunai.

"You piece of sh-" Her blade swept at the teen, moving with incredible speed. "-it?"

Naruto simply wasn't there any more. Hana's sensitive ears picked up the barest rustle of cloth and she instantly focused on it. Her jaw dropped a little when she realized she was looking at the top of the large power-line pole that was just outside her family's yard…and was almost twenty feet tall. The kitsune was crouched at the very top of it, watching her with a raised eyebrow.

"I see it runs in the family," He said with a light smirk.

"…Who the hell are you? That's near jounin level speed! No genin moves that fast, not even a demon-vessel!" The veterinarian demanded, though the intimidation factor was lost with the stunned look on her face.

"You don't know many demon-vessels then. I told you, I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I…Hang on just a sec," Naruto said. He turned to face the yard where the dogs were barking at the top of their lungs and scrabbling to get at him, even though there was a fence and a couple dozen feet of air in between them. The kitsune concentrated and shifted his eyes. A split second later, the dogs were howling in terror rather than fury and trying to get away as fast as possible. Naruto held his eye effect for only a split second before he released it. He wasn't some monster that got his kicks from torturing animals, but at the same time he wanted to be able to speak without being interrupted by a bunch of filthy _dogs_.

"As I was saying, I _am_ Naruto and the Hokage is already aware of my presence. I haven't taken any hostile action that wasn't taken first, so you don't really have a case to arrest me," The kitsune said. He flexed his legs and leapt well over the Inuzuka woman's head to land in a seamless crouch a ways down the alley from her. He calmly stood and faced her, again raising an eyebrow. "So, you want to fight or what? I was thinking about eating, if it's alright with you. I'd rather not get into a scrap that'll spoil my appetite."

"What was that thing you did?" Hana asked, her fear and awe fading when she thought about the canines who were cowering in their kennels even as she spoke. When Naruto gave her a semi-innocent look, she exploded, "To the dogs! What the hell did you do to our dogs? If you hurt them, I swear by Kami-sama's name I'll make you pay."

"I didn't harm them in the slightest. That was just a trick I learned awhile back. They'll be fine in a day or two…unfortunately. If you ask me the filthy little mongrels deserve worse," The kitsune said, hatred darkening his features for an instant and causing Hana to step back.

"W-What the hell is your problem? They're just dogs," The veterinarian asked, a lifetime of caring for the canines making her unable to understand anyone who hated them.

"Exactly," Naruto growled, though it was mostly to himself. He may have settled things with their Lord, but that didn't mean he had to like the mutts in the slightest.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Hana asked, tensing slightly when the teen fixed her with a baleful glare.

"I. Don't. Like. **Dogs**," Naruto snarled. The word 'dogs' came out as a hateful hiss, with a dark undertone that made the hairs rise on the back of the Inuzuka woman's neck. The look of stark fear on her face made the kitsune realize he was leaking killer intent onto her. It was far less potent than the terror effect, but a demon's hatred was nothing to scoff at under any circumstances. He forced himself to relax and calm his tempestuous aura.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you, Inuzuka-san. Please forgive me," The teen said with a formal bow. He disappeared down the alley too fast for Hana to react, though pursuing the Kyuubi-vessel was the last thing she wanted to do right now. When she was sure he was gone, the veterinarian allowed her legs to slump out from underneath her and sat down heavily on the grungy concrete, though she barely noticed the impact.

So _that_ was the infamous Naruto that her brother alternately slandered and praised. She was probably lucky, all things considered. She had no desire to see what someone with that powerful of a killing intent was capable of.

"Kiba, I'm never going to make fun of you again for losing to your class' dead last," Hana muttered to herself as she got up to tend her terrified dogs.

* * *

'Well that couldn't have gone much worse. Nice one, demon-boy. You gonna kick one of her puppies for your next trick?' Naruto scathingly thought to himself as he stealthily ran along the alleyways. Wonderful impression he was making today. Terrified a bunch of do-…mongrels and a woman who was trying to protect them. Uhg, just because Kyuubi hated the things and their Lord was no reason for him to.

The problem was, the Kyuubi hated dogs with a cold fury, unlike its normal fiery rage at most things. It was a far more intense malice than normal, so when they merged Naruto's natural easygoing disposition wasn't able to fully level the emotion out. It was made worse because the original boy had no real love for canines either and even had a couple unpleasant memories involving Kiba and Akamaru. When Naruto and Kyuubi felt strongly in opposite directions about a subject, they almost always compromised about halfway between their two emotions. However, when one felt strongly about something and the other didn't care much, the compromise was much less and the new Naruto tended to lean towards the stronger opinion in his views.

So he hated dogs. No logical explanation for it, or at least not one that Naruto had discovered yet from the demon's memories, and apparently that put him at odds with the entire Inuzuka clan.

Wonderful.

The sudden return of his headache caused the boy to grab his head and grit his teeth. He had momentarily forgotten about it in the adrenaline rush of his confrontation with Hana, but now that he was experiencing the let down it was returning with a vengeance. He needed to meditate badly, even if it meant cutting his exercises short for now. His head felt like it was going to split open. Maybe he could blame some of his actions on his tension…No, he shouldn't have acted that way. No excuses.

Even if the whole area reeked of _dog_! …Arrgh, dammit!

Naruto picked up his pace and dashed along, hurrying to get back to the woods or the orchard. He needed a place of total peace or he was going to go nuts. The last thing he needed was his demon side getting all weird and causing him to flip out and gut someone. Tsunade would beat his brains in if that happened and his head was hurting enough already! He was running so fast that he didn't pay any attention to where he was going as he crossed a main street area.

Predictably, he slammed right into someone. Surprisingly enough (or unsurprisingly considering he still had his gravity seal turned off), it was the other person who was knocked to the ground from the impact. Naruto stared dumbly for a moment at the familiar face, trying to place it in his foggy head.

"Hey! Watch where you're going you assho-Naruto?" The man said. His face had a scar running across his upper cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

"Iruka-sensei?" The kitsune said in puzzlement. Damn, his head hurt!

"Naruto! You're back! Where the hell have you been, you idiot? Why did you take off lik-" Umino Iruka began to yell, both relieved and angry with the blonde teen. He was cut off by the half-demon, who put his hand over the man's mouth and dragged him unceremoniously back into the alleyway he'd just ran out of. He did _not_ want a crowd drawn and Iruka was very good at getting people's attention.

Naruto carefully propped his ex-teacher up against the side of a building and stepped away from him. The chuunin stared at him for a long moment, stunned by both the kitsune's actions and the ease with which he did them. The large changes in the teen's body and attitude didn't escape his notice either. The teen also had yet to demand ramen from him, which was something so unusual that it raised alarm bells in the schoolteacher's head.

After several moments of uncomfortable silence, Naruto finally shifted and said, "You mind if we do the reunion thing back at your apartment? My head feels like it's going to split in two."

"…Sure," Iruka said after a moment. It hadn't been often, but he occasionally had Naruto over for dinner at his place before the boy left with Jiraiya to go on their training mission. Still, this didn't feel exactly like the Naruto he knew. Something was different and it prickled his senses with an uncomfortable familiarity.

The chuunin shrugged it off and gestured for the teen to follow. What was he thinking? This was Naruto. He wouldn't harm anyone who didn't attack him first and he certainly wouldn't dream of attacking his 'Iruka-sensei.'

The trip went by in silence and in less than ten minutes, Iruka was unlocking the door to his apartment and motioning Naruto inside. He pointed to the couch as he walked by the living room.

"Make yourself comfortable. You want anything to drink?" He asked as he moved into his small kitchen. He rustled around for a couple minutes, using hospitality as an excuse to get his thoughts together. When he realized the teen had yet to reply, he poked his head back into the living room. "Naruto?"

The kitsune wasn't sitting on the couch. Rather, he was sitting on the floor in front of it in a cross-legged position. He had his hands in a strange hand-clasp in front of him, which looked similar to a standard shinobi hand-seal. The teen's eyes were closed and he had an intense look of concentration on his features.

He hadn't even twitched at Iruka's voice.

"Naruto? Are you alright?" The chuunin asked, deliberately raising his voice a bit. The kitsune still gave no response. Iruka felt a little uncomfortable, almost like he was intruding on something that he shouldn't.

The schoolteacher snorted. How could he be intruding in his own home?

Still…Naruto looked like he was in some sort of trance. One of the things Iruka had learned over the years from the grab bag of shinobi tricks he'd picked up was that it was almost always a bad idea to disturb someone in a deep mental state. Unless the person's life was being threatened, the forceful awakening did more harm then good. So he shouldn't bother the blonde, no matter how much he wanted to talk to him. Alright then, he'd leave Naruto alone and make sure he was undisturbed till he broke out of his trance.

Then he could whack the idiot for worrying him so much.

* * *

"…**_You are an incarnate of fury…A very bad idea to lose your temper…How can you possibly beat…Get up, off your ass and _move_…Own lord. I won't apologize to any soul on this plane or the next for being powerful. I hold no allegiances and I bow my head to no…Fox, this was done by your apprent…They challenge us, then we'll crush them. We're the masters. We won't kowtow to anyone, not even the Gods…Killed, every last one. The Gates have been broken down…If you think you are strong, then stand before me…I don't lose. Ever…_**

* * *

When Naruto opened his eyes again, the sun was setting over the western forest. The small apartment he sat in was bathed in the star's fiery red-orange glow. The color reminded him of some of the visions he'd seen during his meditation. The Kyuubi hadn't fought nearly as much as the villagers believed, but it had still seen more battle than any ten countries from human history. Images of raging firestorms, agonized screams, and rivers of blood had dominated his mind while he was in his trance. Usually he saw very little as he meditated, but occasionally the Kyuubi's memories took advantage of the situation and some flowed into his thoughts. Fortunately they weren't a huge addition to his already strained mind and they'd been neatly packed away in his brain along with everything else.

Naruto stood and cracked his stiff back. His headache was gone and his mind was sharp for the first time in a couple days. Hopefully when the clones finished building the house he could sleep undisturbed and would have time in the mornings to let his thoughts wander while he relaxed.

"You're up! About time. I was almost ready to get Tsunade-sama."

The kitsune turned and saw Iruka standing in the entry of the hall that led to his bedroom. The scarred chuunin gave him a long stare filled with a strange range of emotions.

"You alright?" He finally asked in a concerned tone.

"…Yeah, I am," Naruto said after a moment. He gave a hesitant smile to the man he thought of as his older brother, which widened when it was returned. It suddenly became fake and plastic-like as he felt a sickening wrench of guilt in his guts.

He'd killed this man's parents. He now was the demon to blame. Iruka would be perfectly justified to hate his guts.

"You want some dinner?" The schoolteacher asked, nodding towards the kitchen.

"Sure. That'd be great," The teen replied in a quiet voice. If the older ninja noticed, he made no mention of it.

The sun had finally sunk over the horizon by the time Iruka was done cooking and the table was set. He'd done a little extra this time, cooking some stir-fry in addition to the usual ramen. The chuunin's earlier concerns grew when he noticed the way Naruto was eating. The teen finished everything on his plate, true, but he hadn't spoken a single word throughout the whole meal except for a brief 'thanks.'

The silence finally got too oppressive and as Iruka pushed his empty plate away, he spoke up.

"So how've you been? You haven't told me about all your exploits this past year. Actually, you didn't even get a chance to tell me about all the stunts you and Jiraiya were up to the year before that," The schoolteacher asked with a forced, but genuinely friendly smile.

Naruto was quiet for a long couple moments before he said, "Not much to say. I went missing-nin, pulled off a freaky ritual with the fox, and wandered from country to country while I recovered. Nothing big aside from that."

"That's it?" Iruka asked, a bit surprised. Not so much from the lack of info, but more along the lines of how little bragging the teen was doing. He'd been expecting him to talk his ear off for the rest of the night. This quiet attitude bothered him. He gently prompted, "You must've done something interesting, right?"

"I became sworn brothers with a psychopath, was the assistant to a half-gnome from another dimension, and was a Kage's personal assassin and student. That count?" The kitsune dryly asked. He had yet to look up from the broth in his bowl that he was slowly swirling with his chopsticks.

"…Personal assassin?" The scarred chuunin asked in a slightly choked tone. Good Kami! Who was the Kage? For that matter…"How…How good an assassin were you?"

Naruto set his chopsticks down and finally met Iruka's gaze with a level stare as he said, "In the past year I've killed over a hundred and fifty people. Some were Sound-nins and bandits that attacked me as I traveled, but most were contracts to hunt down missing-nins. Kind of ironic, considering I was a missing-nin myself at the time."

"…Oh," Iruka said in a stunned voice. Well…so he was a _very_ good assassin. Imagine that. No wonder the boy felt so different than before. As far as he knew, Naruto had never made a kill before he left with Jiraiya. Hopefully, it hadn't bothered him too mu-

Naruto slammed his chopsticks down and gripped the side of his head in anger, totally interrupting the other ninja.

"Naruto?" The schoolteacher asked with raised eyebrows.

"You're not going to avoid this. Just spit it out demon-boy," The younger shinobi growled to himself.

"Hey, what's wrong with you? You've been acting all strange and-" The chuunin was cut off.

"I've done your family a great dishonor, Iruka-sensei," The kitsune said in a dead serious tone, looking up to meet the man's eyes.

"Uh, and what would that be?" Iruka hesitantly asked. Why did he have a _very _bad feeling about this?

"I killed your parents," Naruto stated in a flat tone.

"Don't be ridiculous, Naruto, it wasn't you. It was the Kyuu…bi…" The schoolteacher's voice trailed off at sight of a pair of red eyes staring at him. He'd seen eyes very much like those, almost fifteen years ago when his parents had been butchered and he'd been dragged screaming and bleeding off the battlefield.

"Exactly. The Kyuubi did," The kitsune said. He allowed his eyes to return to normal as he told the chuunin his story.

The entire story, starting from when he woke up in the hospital a year ago to when he broke into Tsunade's office a few days back. Throughout it all, Iruka could only be grateful he was already sitting down as he was sure he'd have fallen over otherwise. When Naruto's voice finally trailed off, he couldn't think of a single thing to say. What was he supposed to even feel?

"As I said, Iruka-sensei, I've done your family a huge dishonor and I-"

"Don't! Just…shut up," Iruka managed to get out. His mind was racing and sluggish at the same time. Hot-cold; giddy-queasy. Dammit, how the hell should he react to this? He finally got his young friend back only to learn that he'd merged with his parents' murderer. What the hell was he supposed to think?

"I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei," Naruto quietly said, the guilt at causing his first real friend pain evident in his voice.

The scarred chuunin stared at him for a several long moments before getting up so fast that he knocked his chair over and several plates off the table. Even with the gravity seal off, Naruto had no time to react before he was grabbed in a bone crunching hug that almost put Tsunade's to shame.

Iruka's thoughts finally settled on one theme: It was still Naruto. Even if there was a demon in his head, it was still Naruto. Only Naruto called him 'Iruka-sensei' like that. A demon wouldn't feel guilty. Naruto would and did. A demon wouldn't allow himself to be hugged. A demon wouldn't apologize. It was still Naruto where it mattered.

It was still Naruto.

And for some time, everything was quiet in the apartment.

* * *

When Naruto finally returned to the hollow after a thirty hour absence, Naru-kun just about took his head off for worrying him so badly. Naruto had laughed it off and relayed the events of his venture into the village. The clone had calmed down after learning that his creator had met Iruka again, but it still scowled at the kitsune every now and then for worrying him. Naru-kun was more than a little protective of Naruto and it was likely only because of the half-demon's direct order to remain in the hidden glade and continue building the house that kept the blood bunshin from hunting him down across Konoha.

Naruto had spent the night and most of the next day at Iruka's apartment. After the initial awkwardness, they had slowly fallen back into their old habits. The schoolteacher had insisted that he tell him everything in detail, so the kitsune had spent many hours giving him the same story he'd told Tsunade. Iruka had been more than a little disturbed at both the thought of the ritual and Naruto's new friendship with Gaara, but he'd managed to hide that to some degree. In the end the chuunin had tried to digest it all but, since it would obviously take some time for it all to soak in, the kitsune had left and said he'd meet up with Iruka later. The schoolteacher agreed, but not before he made Naruto swear to not unlock the next unit of demon chakra unless he was there. Though the half-demon had been reluctant to agree, he relented in the end.

Lovely. One more person to stare at him while he set himself on fire.

A couple days passed and, like Naruto anticipated, his house was finished very quickly. The kitsune himself had been walking along the dirt road after another day's training session (and decimation of Ichiraku's ramen supply), when he noticed Naru-kun waiting for him outside the entrance seal. He had whooped when the clone said it was all done and the two had set about decorating and adding furniture to the place.

And now, here he was a full six days after he'd begun construction, waiting for his blood clone to get back from fetching Tsunade. Hopefully the Fifth wouldn't mind the fact that he'd made a hunk of her village disappear off the face of the earth. The kitsune shrugged as best as he could while doing pushups. It didn't really matter. If Tsunade yelled at him, then he'd just say he couldn't undo it and leave it at that.

He was a bit of a sneak at heart, after all.

Naruto carefully did a handstand and started doing pushups that way. It was both hard, yet surprisingly easy when he figured out how to use his skeleton as a support structure for his magnified weight. Without the gravity seal on, he could do these for hours before he had to quit. With the seal active though, he could only go for ten minutes at a time before his muscles exhausted themselves and he had to go back to regular pushups. For now though, he was doing them on his hands and was thoroughly engrossed in his task.

"Fifty-seven…fifty-eight…fifty-nine…sixt-"

"Working hard?"

"-tyaaaghh!"

A resounding boom echoed throughout the forest, startling several flocks of birds into flight and causing some shinobi in the training grounds to look up in confusion.

Naruto groaned as he tried to shift himself out of the crater he lay in. He'd been so focused on his exercises that he hadn't noticed anyone sneaking up on him. What good were enhanced senses if he couldn't detect someone wandering up to him? A shadowy face leaned over him as he struggled to sit up.

"I never knew ramen could make someone gain so much weight so fast. Huh. I'll have to add it to our medical journals," Tsunade said with a wicked smile.

"Ha ha…" Naruto dryly said as he sat up…Err, _tried_ to sit up. He wasn't having much success in doing anything other than pulling several muscles in his back. He finally gave up and sagged back as he asked, "A little help?"

Tsunade grinned and reached down to haul the teen up. As she grasped his hand, she was surprised at just how heavy he really was. Exerting some of her formidable strength, the Sannin easily lifted the kitsune out of the hole. Unfortunately, she let go a bit too soon and he lost his balance again. She had a brief glimpse of Naruto's panicked arms pin-wheeling in the air before another boom echoed through the surrounding woods.

"Ow…" Came the kitsune's voice, though it was heavily muffled by the dirt his face was currently embedded in. He struggled to push himself upright, but found the dirt too yielding and wound up sprawled on the ground again.

Tsunade couldn't help but roar in laughter at Naruto's predicament. She knew she shouldn't, as he had a truly noble cause for training so hard, but it was too hilarious to pass up. When the teen managed to pull his grungy face out of the dirt to glare up at her, the Hokage's laughter grew even louder. To the half-demon's dismay, he found that not only did all his attempts at intimidation fail, but every time he tried to drag himself up and attack his big sister he would inevitably wind up in a worse position and cause Tsunade to laugh harder. It was Naru-kun who finally ended the situation, having decided that he'd watched from the sidelines long enough. He still couldn't resist a chuckle at his master's plight.

Naruto really was the most entertaining person he'd ever met in his (admittedly short) existence.

A crack echoed as several kage bunshins materialized around the floundering teen and they quickly hauled him to his feet. Letting the clones support his weight, Naruto quickly yanked down the bandages on his chest and smeared some blood from his scraped hand on the seal adorning the right side of his chest. A spoke in the middle of his evil wagon-wheel seal rippled and changed from vertical to horizontal. Almost immediately, he stood up taller.

"Fucking gravity constant…" Naruto muttered as the clones popped out of existence around him. He cracked his neck a bit as his body repaired the damage from the impacts and glared at the Hokage, who wasn't trying very hard to muffle her guffaws. "Thanks for the help, by the way."

"Oh you're welcome, sweetie-pie!" Tsunade mock cooed as she reached out and pinched one of the teen's cheeks. The kitsune's look darkened and a violent tension radiated from his body.

"Master, is there anything else you require of me?" Naru-kun quickly asked, hoping to distract them and stave off unnecessary bloodshed. He _really_ didn't want to know what the amount of property damage a fight between Tsunade and Naruto would result in.

"Huh? Oh, uh…Nothing I can think of, Naru-kun," The kitsune in question replied after a second of scrunching his face up in thought. He gave a dismissing nod towards his clone and said, "Feel free to sign off."

"Alright. Summon me again if you need anything, Master," Naru-kun replied. He paused for a second and said, "And Master? Please don't trash the house. We just got finished building it and I'd hate to have to fix it because you two were bickering like children…By the way, that's a most unbecoming attitude of a woman of your station, Tsunade-sama."

"Childish! Why you little…" Tsunade growled as she stormed towards the clone. Naru-kun just gave an amused wink at her before he melted into a mass of liquid fire that quickly vanished. The Fifth huffed and crossed her arms before turning on Naruto. "I assume you're responsible for his attitude?"

"…Don't remind me," The kitsune grumbled. He walked over to the where his land used to be and cut his finger open to smear a drop of blood on the bark of a tree. Looking closer, Tsunade noticed that there was a marking in the bark that took the faint shape of a wobbly circle with a couple odd lines hanging off of it. She glanced back at the teen and blinked her eyes rapidly as they protested what they were seeing.

The air in front of Naruto shimmered and _bent_ in an eye straining manner. As the Fifth watched, the forest seemed to open up and form a path leading deep into it. What really hurt her head was that there was no physical evidence of its presence up until that moment, yet it seemed like it had been there the whole time. She grimaced and rubbed her eyes.

"What the hell is that and why is it here?" Tsunade growled as her eye twitched from the strain being put on it.

"Just follow me and I'll show you," Naruto replied as he walked through the green tunnel. The Hokage followed cautiously, though nothing out of the ordinary happened in the twilight undergrowth.

"Alright, what is it you wanted to…" Tsunade started to ask as she stepped into the hollow, but quickly trailed off at the sight in front of her. "Oh…That."

A three story house stood in the middle of the clearing that ran along the southern edge of the glade. _How_ Naruto managed to build a three story house in less than a week, she had no idea, but there it was.

Yet another bizarre, yet impressive accomplishment to add to the kitsune's record.

The house was of an odd design. It was neither a traditional home like one would find in the clan sectors, nor was it the conglomerate metal-wood design of most Konoha buildings. It was something else, though there was some familiarity to it. The outside was made of wood and reinforced with metal at strategic points. The siding was a deep, reddish-brown color and it held a pleasant odor even at a distant. That would probably fade over time, seeing as the wood was still freshly cut. It seemed almost like a cabin, yet not quite. It certainly didn't clash with the forest like a normal building would have. The windows were unusually large, especially on the second floor. They were almost door sized, which struck Tsunade as odd considering how paranoid most shinobi were about defense.

The overall shape of the building was square in the central part. The first two floors seemed to have been shaped to be box like, then it looked like other sections of the house had been added on. To the right from the Hokage's perspective, the first floor was extended outwards from the side of the house. It had been extended almost as far as the house was wide, giving it an odd 'L' shape. The third floor didn't seem to be one full floor. Rather, there were several odd extensions built onto it. They seemed to be rooms made independently of each other, each presumably accessible only by the second floor inside. They were bizarrely shaped, with one made to look like a block with a pyramid on it, another a large dome that took up most of the far side of the roof, and yet another seemed to be a…bell tower? Yes, it look like the top part of a bell tower seen on some old churches. Or perhaps it was a lookout roost of some sort. Regardless, it was higher than any other part of the building including the dome, which was about fifteen feet shorter than it.

All in all, the house looked to be about a hundred feet wide and roughly fifty feet tall (including the tower.) It was odd and chaotic looking, yet it had an air of quality and sturdiness that implied it had been built with care. Though it was large, it didn't take up much room in the glade nor did it detract from the natural beauty of the place.

"Well, what do you think?" Naruto asked from beside her. His voice was both proud and uneasy, as though he'd just finished a painting he'd worked hard on and was waiting for a critic to give an opinion.

"It's…strange. Not bad. You built it really well. But it's still strange," Tsunade said after a long moment. The kitsune scrunched his face up at her a bit, his eyes making fox-slits, then accepted her comment at face value.

"Well, come inside and I'll give you a tour," Naruto said as he strolled through the field and up to his front door. It was elegantly designed and built of solid, dark brown wood that the Hokage couldn't identify (then again, she had never bothered to learn the different types of trees used for construction during her travels.) It unlatched with a soft click and slid open silently on well oiled hinges.

The landing wasn't what she'd expected. It was a small square room that lacked any real defining features…Well, except for the massive spiral staircase rising out of the middle of the polished wood floor. The metal stairs rose up to the second floor and made the room seem taller than it actually was (though it actually _was_ pretty damn tall.) Looking through the stairs, Tsunade noticed a large decoration on the wall between the second floor landing and the first floor door in front of them. Sidestepping, she got a good look at the marking.

A spiral. A large, metal spiral about four feet in diameter had been embedded in the wall. Though it was obviously metal, Naruto had somehow managed to alter the steel so that it was a light-orange color. It had been polished to near chrome levels, making it seem a brighter color than it actually was. It drew attention to the symbol, but not in a tacky way. Tsunade's mind hovered on the multiple symbolisms the spiral represented for a moment before the kitsune distracted her from her thoughts.

"Kick off your shoes and follow me," He calmly said, kicking his own boots off and walking across the room barefoot. If he noticed the Fifth's distraction, he gave no sign of it. Tsunade quickly shucked her sandals off and slid into a pair of house slippers that rested on a small shelf at the side of the room. Naruto led her through the door to the right (she noticed there was a door for all four walls to the landing.)

The room they entered was a decent sized living room. At least that's what the teen called it. It seemed more like a den or a lounge, as it was dark and warm looking with beat up armchairs and a couple couches taking up most of the space. It looked like a comfortable place to lie about and do absolutely nothing. A couple modest paintings decorated the walls, but aside from that there wasn't much else to it.

"I'm not used to having guests, so I have no real idea how to decorate this room," Naruto said with a sheepish shrug. Tsunade just nodded at the statement and motioned for the kitsune to lead on.

Rather than taking her back to the landing, the half-demon walked across the living room and opened a side door. This room was the extension the Hokage had noticed from the outside and its obvious purpose explained a lot.

Naruto had built a modest sized dojo along the side of his house. Though it wasn't very large, it was enough for him to practice katas and weapon skills indoors. The dojo was mostly unremarkable, though a couple things did take her by surprise. The first was that the walls were the same dark wood as the rest of the house, rather than the traditional paper clan dojos were made out of. The second thing of notice was the weapons lining the walls. The sheer volume was staggering. Somewhere along the line Naruto must have become a weapons collector. There were the usual katanas, nodachis, assorted shorts swords and kunai, but there were also swords of a _very_ foreign looking design. Axes, spears, bows, shields, a couple sets of what looked like steel molds for a human body (it took her a second to realize it was extremely thick armor), and many unidentifiable weapons were all set up all along the edges of the room.

Tsunade walked up to one rack and lifted an odd weapon that looked like a thick stick with a spiky ball hanging off the end of it. Though it would probably be too heavy for most people to lift with two hands, she easily hefted it with her off hand and took a couple mock swings.

"Heh, I should've known you'd pick up a morningstar. It suits you," Naruto dryly commented behind her.

"'Morningstar', huh?" The Fifth said, slowly pronouncing the foreign word to make sure she got it right. She took another couple swings and examined the weapon closely before setting it back on its stand. Glancing about at all the other war tools, the Hokage's sharp mind took note of one common factor they all had.

"These are all very old."

"Yep, the youngest weapon I have is one of the katanas hanging on the wall over there. It was made about fifteen years before you were born," Naruto replied casually as he strolled around the place. Tsunade watched him as he stopped in front of a dummy wearing a strange armor that said 'S.W.A.T.' on the chest. The kitsune carefully adjusted the helmet's clear visor and brushed some lint off the shoulder before he turned back the Fifth and asked, "Not bad, huh? I never risk using any of them in real combat, but I like having them around. And it's not that hard to maintain them when you can make an instant restoration army."

"…Do I even want to know how you got all these?" Tsunade asked in a suspicious tone. Naruto wasn't a dishonest person necessarily, but he had a museum worthy collection of antique weaponry in his house after only a year long absence. Hopefully he hadn't 'borrowed' them from some wealthy collector or noble.

"Scavenged most of them. I've visited the fallen cities a few times this past year with a friend of mine from the Hidden Night. On one of our trips I found an old museum and looted it, which is where most of the foreign stuff you see here came from. A lot of the local weapons I took as booty from assassinations of rich missing-nins. You know some of them set themselves up as minor lords as a cover for their operations? That way they can also hire guards and other ninja to protect them from Hunter-nins," Naruto replied as walked over to breathe on a mirror-like shield and polish a smudge off with a clean spot on his ragged vest.

"No I didn't. I'll be sure to ask our spying teams why they haven't found that out yet," Tsunade replied with a frown. Her eyes narrowed as she said, "So that's how you've been funding yourself."

The kitsune stuck his tongue out at her sheepishly and said, "Yep. Yajin-kage said I could keep anything of value that I found while on missions as long as I gave about forty percent to the Ice Village. Even with a commission fee that high, I still brought home a _lot_ of treasure. I probably won't have to work for half a decade if I don't want to."

"Hmm…I see," The Fifth muttered to herself. After a couple seconds she glanced up and said, "So show me to the next room."

"Alright," Naruto said cheerfully as he led her back through the living room and into the landing. This time he opened the door across from the entrance. A narrow, but comfortable hall was on the other side. It was short and ended in a funny zigzag that led straight into a medium sized kitchen. It was pretty much what one would expect of a kitchen. It had all the standard appliances (fridge, sink, dishwasher, etc.) and the wooden walls had been painted a pleasant light-green. Naruto had gotten his hands on a small, comfortable table and had set a few chairs around it. Including the open doorway into the hall, there were a total of five entrances into the kitchen.

"Uh, what are all the rooms for these?" Tsunade asked as she gestured her hand about.

"That leads back into the living room," Naruto said pointing at the eastern door. He pointed at the northern door and said, "That leads outside onto the deck. The open doorway over there leads to the dining room and this…"

The half-demon walked up the western door and opened it up. The Hokage briefly glanced in the open doorway on her left and nodded in approval of the spartan, yet well furnished dining room. There was a large, polished table that could easily fit eight or ten people if there was a need. There was little else of interest in there, so she walked past it and through the door Naruto had disappeared into.

"Nice, huh? I figure if I'm going to relax in a bath, then I'd rather do it with a nice view," The blonde teen said when Tsunade stepped inside. Her jaw dropped a little and she gave an appreciative whistle at the room he'd built.

The bathing room was large. Almost as large as the dojo, which was probably forty-five feet squared. The floor was highly polished wood that was completely unmarred. The only piece of furniture or the like was a large, clawed bathtub that rested in the center of the room. It was deep enough and long enough to fit two people, though they'd be getting in an awfully suggestive position if they tried. The tub was a masterpiece, if one could apply such a status to a bathtub. It had been artistically sculpted and had been carefully molded to fit a person's body almost perfectly. And from the position it was set up in, the bather had a spectacular view of the hollow outside.

The walls were all made of sliding glass panels that went from floor to ceiling. The north, west, and south walls were all composed of the panels, making the room almost totally exposed to the surrounding glade. The only exception to this was the eastern wall that bordered the kitchen and the nearest quarter of the southern wall, where a small shower and a rack of bathing supplies had been set up. The wooden section of the southern wall also had a small partition extending out from it to give the shower some extra privacy. Apparently Naruto like to bath with a view but shower without anyone peeping. Aside from those things of interest, there wasn't much else to the room.

"It's…strange. Good, but still pretty strange," Tsunade said after a couple minutes of looking about.

"Heh, can't please everyone," Naruto replied with a slight grin. He turned and walked back to the kitchen. "Coming?"

Tsunade followed and they walked back the way they came, through the kitchen and hall into the landing. Naruto led her through the only door they hadn't been through yet, which was the one on the southern side of the room.

"I lived with a tinker for awhile and I learned how useful it was to have a workshop. It's nice to be able to repair my own equipment and make the tools I need," The kitsune explained as he gestured around the large room. They stood in a large room that was filled with about every tool imaginable and some that weren't. It was over a third the size of the dojo, though it was rectangular in design rather than square. To the left of the door, several large and heavy-duty tables had been set up and they already had several assorted objects resting on them. The only one that Tsunade could identify was a gutted clock that was laid out in several pieces with its shiny cogs resting on soft cloths around it. The walls on that side of the room had been lined with wide benches just underneath the windows and they too were covered in unidentifiable tools. This seemed to be where Naruto worked on his weapons, judging from the assorted kunai and a katana blade missing its hilt lying on one of the wooden platforms.

To the right of the door, two long and clean tables had been set up. Seeing as she could run a hospital in her sleep, Tsunade easily identified the assorted collection of medical equipment spread across them. Naruto had somehow gotten a hold of two high quality electric microscopes, several hot plates and alcohol-fueled burners, an electric centrifuge, and even a _magnetic_ stirrer (Konoha General Hospital only had four of those.) High shelves lined the walls of this area of the room from floor to ceiling, allowing no windows for extra light on this side. Vials, jars, and other containers of strange materials were messily scattered about each shelf. If Naruto had a system to organize such chaos, the Fifth had no clue what it was. She did note, however, that only a quarter of the space on the shelves had been used. Either he wasn't finished unpacking or he had yet to stock up.

Understandably more interested in the medical side of the workshop, Tsunade strolled over and took a look at a project Naruto had begun. A battered scroll lay open on the nearest table next to a simmering glass of thick, tan liquid. The cloudy, syrup-like goo gave off a strong smell of chemicals and herbs. It was vaguely familiar to the medic's sharp nose, but she couldn't place it. She got her answer when she glanced at the scroll.

"You're making your own soldier pills?" Tsunade asked, a note of curious disbelief in her voice as she glanced up at Naruto. "Why would someone with unnaturally high stamina like you need chakra supplements?"

"I don't use them for the chakra boosting. After that little incident a year ago when my muscles were destroyed, I decided I needed something for whenever my healing factor goes overtime. The raw nutrients in soldier pills give my body something else to devour besides itself when it's regenerating," Naruto replied with a shrug. He walked over and pointed his finger at a line of kanji on the scroll and said, "Besides, I'm using a slightly different type. This recipe focuses more on the raw chemical energy than rebuilding spent chakra. If a normal person ate them, they could probably go six days without eating rather than the normal three a soldier pill grants. The Ice Village uses them for long-range missions since they're a hundred times as efficient as packing food. Most Ice-nins still call them soldier pills, though Yajin-kage and I call them ration pills."

"Huh. Why make them though? You could just buy the normal kind," Tsunade questioned without looking up. Her eyes rapidly traced and memorized the chemical formulas and instructions on the scroll's surface. This would be a handy addition to the standard soldier pills and blood-stopping pills Leaf-nins took into the field.

"For one, the Leaf doesn't make ration-type soldier pills," Naruto answered, leaning back a bit. "Two, the homemade version usually tastes a bit better and has a little extra juice. And three…hell, they're cheap and easy to make. The only real resource they use up is time and even that's not bad. I just set the gunk to stew for a day or so while I do something else, then I take a half hour to finish making them. Not a lot of work involved."

"Hmm, you have a copy I could take with me?" The Hokage asked.

"Sure, but it's upstairs," The half-demon said as he walked back to the middle of the workshop. Tsunade reluctantly broke away from the medical equipment and started for the door. Naruto's voice gave her pause when he said, "Hold up. We don't need the stairs."

"Oh?" The Fifth said with a raised eyebrow.

"Yep, come over here," The kitsune replied as he walked to the wall directly across from the door. He stepped onto a weird sheet of metal lying on the floor and gestured for the medic to join him.

Tsunade did so and eyed the shorter ninja suspiciously when he casually reached out his hand and pressed a red button set into bar that rose out of the plate they stood on. The Fifth jumped slightly when the metal sheet rose into the air with a mechanical whir. She looked up and noticed a hole in the ceiling above them that was the exact shape of the platform they stood on. The contraption lifted them into the second floor room in a matter of seconds, leaving the Hokage to stare incredulously at the teen next to her.

"Exactly _why_ did you build an elevator in your house?" She asked while giving him a strange look. And she thought Naruto was weird _before_ the fusion.

"More like a maintenance lift," Naruto casually said as he stepped off the platform and into the room. "I thought it would be a good idea to have my library and my workshop directly connected so I can grab references or tools quickly. Hell, knowing me I'll probably wind up leaving the lift on the first floor and jumping up and down through the hole. Still, it's pretty neat and it's handy to get furniture upstairs. So…What do you think of my study?"

Tsunade took a good look around the room they'd risen into. The size and shape was identical to the workshop below. The walls and floor were made out of a dark red wood, giving the place a more intimate feel than the rest of the house. Though there were several lamps scattered about, none of them were on and the only light that came in was through the tall windows that adorned the eastern side of the room. The windows were in a trapezoid type position, making a small extension off the house. Into that space a cushioned bench had been built allowing someone to recline next to the windows and look outside. A couple armchairs and a small coffee table were set up on that side of the room as well, presumably for playing Shogi or Go with company.

The west side of the room was dominated by a _very _large desk. The walls surrounding it were lined with large book and scroll shelves. The bookshelves were mostly empty, but the scroll shelves were almost full. Naruto calmly walked over one of them and slid a small scroll out. He moved to plop down in the high-backed rolling chair and casually tossed the bamboo tube onto the desk in front of him.

"There you go. Recipe, ingredients, and chemical formulas should all be in that. I'm glad Yajin-kage made me make a couple spares just in case," The kitsune said as he leaned back and propped his feet up on his desk. Tsunade snorted a little when she realized how similarly he was mimicking her usual pose at the office. She grabbed the scroll case and popped it open to pull out the rolled up text. She gave it a quick scan to make sure it was identical to the one downstairs before nodding and sealing it back up again.

"So why a library? You've never had much interest in…Oh, right. The Kyuubi was a book freak," The Fifth said, answering her own question.

"Knowledge freak, actually, but yeah. It did love books. I have to say I inherited that trait in spades, though only for books I find interesting. The fox would read anything and everything it came across just in case it had some use to it. There's too much boring crap out there for me to deal with, so I just read the good stuff," Naruto said. He swiveled his chair a little and gestured at the nearly empty bookshelves. "I don't have much of a collection yet. Books were rare enough in this country to begin with. Considering the age we live in and how everyone prefers scrolls nowadays, I'm going to have a hell of a time filling up my library."

"Hmm, there are a couple general text shops in town, though like you said they probably carry only scrolls. I think Hatake-san mentioned something about how his Yamanaka student liked to visit one of them a lot. It's supposed to be down the street from her family's flower shop, though I have no idea where it is exactly," Tsunade said as she tucked the medical scroll away into one of her pockets.

"I'll ask her the next time I see her," Naruto replied thoughtfully. So Ino like to read up from time to time…That was a little odd for a ninja. That's not to say most shinobi were dumb, but they were like soldiers. Few invested a decent amount of their time into reading. Ino didn't seem at all nerdish like Sakura was when they were at the academy, so when did she develop an interest in books and such?

"That's right...I forgot to ask. Exactly when did you get the chance to acquire Ino's form?" The Hokage asked suspiciously.

"Uh…What form? I have no idea what you're talking about. You must have confused it with someone else. And I said, _if _I see her again. You need to get your hearing checked along with your eyes," The kitsune said with a blatantly fake innocent look and voice.

"Right. I'll fall for that one when I start believing Jiraiya's a charity worker," Tsunade drawled in a tone that indicated that she absolutely sure he was lying. For some reason though, she let it go. "Come on brat, show me the rest of the house."

Naruto eyed the Hokage with a bit of counter suspicion, then shrugged and hopped out of his chair. As he opened the door, he said, "There's not a whole hell of a lot left to the house. Most of the interesting stuff is downstairs. I haven't finished the third story rooms yet and I haven't even touched the basement."

The study door led out into a hall that was only marginally wider than the one on the first floor. To the right, the hall opened into the landing and the spiral staircase. In front of them was a plain looking door. A little further on was its twin. The hall ended to their left in a large door that had a nine-lined spiral carved into it with a kunai. Tsunade could tell it had been carved with a kunai because the knife in question was still embedded in the door.

"Alright, I'll save this one for last," Naruto said as he briefly gestured to the first door before he moved off down the hall. He paused at the second door and casually flung it open. "Behold, the throne of the Demon Lord!"

Tsunade's eye twitched as the cheesy pun when she saw the toilet sitting at the end of the small room. A loud whack and an "Ow, dammit!" followed. The Fifth ignored the kitsune's cursing as she walked past him. It seemed not even fusing with a demon could totally get rid of Jiraiya's influence on the brat.

"What's in here?" She asked as she stopped in front of the carved door.

"Go on in," Naruto muttered as he rubbed the swelling on his head. Who cares if it was already fading? That hurt!

Tsunade stepped into a room that was almost half the size of the dojo. It was actually kind of plain compared to the other rooms. It took her a couple of moments to realize what it was.

"Your bedroom?" She questioned while turning to the teen as he stepped up next to her.

"Yeah. Nice isn't it?" Naruto replied, taking a deep breath of the fresh air as it blew in through the open windows.

The room was wide and open, with tall windows on the north, west, and south walls. The glass had been raised so a cross-breeze was gently blowing through the room. The walls, ceiling, and even the floor were all a sky-blue color. White wisps covered most of the blue, making it seem like the entire room was in a cirrus cloud. The wind and bright windows reinforced the illusion. A single dresser and side table had been set up in the nearest corner to the left. They too had been painted similarly to the walls, making them all but unnoticeable and keeping the room feeling open and airy. The only other piece of furniture (if one could call it that) was a very large sheet that took up most of the far side of the room. Oddly, it had small cords tying all four corners to the floor. While that was weird, it wasn't what caught the Fifth's attention.

The sheet was stretched taunt upwards like a hot air balloon, as though some invisible force was pushing it from the underside. In fact, it looked as though the only thing keeping the sheet from rising away were the cords holding it down. The thing hovered about four and a half feet in the air; five if the domed part was included. Tsunade ducked a little to look underneath and confirmed that there was nothing visible holding it up.

"What. Is. That?" She asked, enunciating each word carefully to emphasize her question. Naruto's dirty vest hitting the floor was her answer. Wearing only body bindings and a pair of shorts, the kitsune gave her a cheeky and delighted grin.

"My bed," He said, then took a running jump and flipped to land in the middle of the floating sheet. To Tsunade's surprised, while the sheet lowered a bit to accommodate his weight, it didn't collapse. In fact, it seemed to settle into a rough rectangular shape as though it were resting on an invisible mattress. Wavy ripples moved outwards from the teen's impact point.

Naruto sighed and relaxed as he said, "I could lay here all day."

Tsunade walked up the sheet and eyed it suspiciously. She raised her hand and pushed into the cotton cloth. It was unlike anything she'd felt before. It was firmer than air or water, yet softer and less consistent than jelly. It felt exactly like she imagined what a cloud would feel like if it could be made solid enough to support someone's weight. It was probably dreamlike to lie on.

"You gonna stand there or are you going to try it out?" Naruto asked in an uncharacteristically lazy tone. The Fifth started to climb up, only to find that it was a bit trickier than she expected it to be. Her arms kept sliding off before she could brace her weight. The kitsune rolled his head to look at her and said, "Nah-uh. You gotta take a running jump to get on. House rule: the first time anyone gets on Uzumaki Naruto's Wind Cushion, they have to run and dive-bomb it. It's fun as hell and besides…I, uh, haven't really figured out a different way to get on it yet."

"Wind Cushion, huh?" Tsunade wryly said as she stepped back several paces. She shucked off her outer jacket and set it on the dresser before lining up a spot and running. It wasn't hard to avoid landing on Naruto, as the sheet was large enough for five people the size of Jiraiya to comfortably lie side by side without touching each other. The Fifth landed facedown and immediately thought she'd hit nirvana.

It was like sinking into a substance so comfortable it had to be stolen from the gods. There was no real impact like with a normal bed or even a water or air mattress. It was just…bliss. There was just enough firmness to feel as though her body was being supported and not uncomfortably weightless (after all, who'd want to sleep feeling like they were falling?) There was no other real sensation, aside from feeling like she was hitching a ride on a cloud, or maybe even as though she was a cloud herself. Tsunade felt herself relaxing so naturally that it was almost against her will. Many of the usual aches and pains that came from decades of using extremely powerful medical jutsu faded now that there was no pressure on her worn body. She let out a delighted sigh and let her spine go limp as a cooked noodle.

"You're making me one of these," Tsunade said without opening her eyes.

"You got it," Naruto replied with an amused chuckle. He was currently doing his best impersonation of a dead man and hadn't moved an inch since he landed.

"How did you make this?" The Hokage asked as she rolled over. Damn, lying on her back was even more comfortable. "I don't particularly care if it's the result of a demon seal or a human sacrifice, as long as you as you can do it again."

"Actually, I didn't need a demon seal for this. I just used a bunch of normal seals and painted over them after they went active," The half-demon lazily replied. "The Kyuubi knew tons about seals, though I've only gotten a little bit of that knowledge. Between it and Ero-sennin, I've picked up quite a few things. At least enough to make this bed and one or two other tricky things."

"Huh...So…How soon can you set one up for my house?" Tsunade asked in a not so casual voice.

Naruto laughed at the totally unsubtle hint and said, "I'll set it up as soon as I'm done showing you the rest of the house."

Tsunade paused at that thought. The sooner they got the tour done, the sooner she could have one of these wonderful wind thingies to sleep on. But that would mean moving…

"Any way we can finish it from here?" The Fifth asked with a slight note of pleading in her voice.

The kitsune busted out laughing at the question and said, "I never knew you could be so lazy, Nee-chan. Come on, it won't take too long to finish. I only have two more spots to show you."

Tsunade sighed and said in a resigned tone, "Fine…If we have to…Uh, Naruto?"

"Hmm?"

"…How do we get off this thing?"

It turned out getting off was even harder than getting on. Naruto finally managed the stunt with a writhing-hopping movement that made him look like an epileptic inchworm. It wasn't the safest means to get off the cushion either as the kitsune discovered when he flopped off the edge and hit the floor with a loud thud. Tsunade had it easy as the teen just reached over and grabbed her hand to pull her off.

"Hmm, I need to put some system in so people can get off it easier…" Naruto muttered thoughtfully as he eyed his bed.

"So, why the wind bed thingy, the paint design, and the huge windows?" Tsunade asked as she gestured around the room and pulled her jacket on at the same time. "It's like being in a windy cirrus cloud…especially when you're on the bed."

"Exactly. I thought it would be fitting for a Wind Element," The kitsune said. At the Fifth's questioning look, he continued, "Every living creature has a certain Element that they react to, be it Water, Fire, Earth, or whatever. Naruto's spirit was a powerful Wind Element. This room is dedicated to that part of him. His half of me finds this more comfortable than anything else in the world. So much of his life has been dictated by or is devoted to the Kyuubi that I wanted to have my private room to have nothing to with it. Some old farts who studied the human mind said that there's a kid in each of us. Well, I guess mine's a hyper little twerp running around nonstop with his arms out to the wind. I thought it was kind of fitting."

Tsunade had no idea how to reply to that, so she just settled for an eloquent, "Oh."

Naruto grinned and said, "Don't worry about it, Nee-chan. It's not like I'm dead or anything. It's just…that part of me gets shunted aside for the Kyuubi a lot by almost everyone and everything in my life…Myself included. I wanted the place where I rest and think in private to always be a reminder that that's not all I am."

"I see," The Hokage said quietly with a small smile. She changed her tone as she asked, "So! What's next?"

"The spare room," Naruto replied as he walked past her and down the hall. He entered the room he'd ignored earlier and motioned for Tsunade to follow.

The spare room was just that: spare. There were assorted odds and ends stacked in there, either leftovers from the rest of the place or stuff that had yet to go into the proper rooms. The walls were the same exposed wood that was prevalent throughout most of the house. The wood here looked unfinished though and not in an artistically deliberate way. Tsunade eyed a half complete table which had several covered paintings resting on it. All in all, it was pretty disappointing compared to the other rooms, even if it did have a nice view of the stream and waterfall out its window.

"You wanted to show me this?" The Fifth dryly asked.

"Kind of. I'll probably wind up making this into a spare bedroom or something. The real thing I wanted to show you is up here," Naruto answer as he twisted a small metal handle built into the far wall. A soft 'clunk' echoed overhead and drew Tsunade's attention upwards to the northeastern corner of the room. A collapsing, metal ladder lowered itself section by section from a rectangular hole in the ceiling. It made almost no sound as it dropped (a testament to the kitsune's construction abilities.) When the ladder was down all the way in the, Naruto walked over and started climbing up it. When he reached the top, he spun a metal wheel built into the ceiling, pushed the circle of metal upwards (why he had a hatch in his room, the Fifth didn't really want to know), and climbed through.

"Come on up! The view is great!" Naruto called down after a minute.

Tsunade followed and climbed up the surprisingly sturdy ladder. When she passed through the hatch, she was surprised to note that it didn't open straight onto the roof. She was in what seemed to be a large wooden chimney that continued upwards for what looked like thirty feet or so. She climbed up into it and rested her feet on either side of the hatch. In the dim light, a second ladder was barely visible. She grabbed it and quickly climbed upwards to the square of light above.

"See? Nice, huh?" Naruto asked as Tsunade stepped off the ladder and onto the square bench surrounding it. The Hokage's eyes widened a little when she saw that they were a little ways over the tree-line surrounding the hollow. Naruto had a nice view of the surrounding forest, the village wall, and even the Hokage Monument. Granted, the Tower offered a much better view but for a house this was a luxury…Err, except for the whole thirty foot plus climb. They were standing in the odd bell tower like structure she'd noticed when she first saw the house. They were in the large, square crow's nest at the top of the watch tower. There was about a two foot wide ledge surrounding the hole so someone could walk around the edges comfortably. The whole nest was walled in and there was a narrow bench running the inside of those same walls, allowing a lookout to sit in reasonable comfort. A small roof had been built over the whole thing, presumably to keep rain out of the ladder shaft and for aesthetic appearance.

"It _is_ a really good view," Tsunade admitted as she leaned against the rail of the southern part of the crow's nest. As her eyes traced over the roof below them, she confirmed her earlier thoughts from the ground. The third floor was really just three odd structures and the ceiling of the second floor. There was the watch tower, that strange box with a pyramid on it just in front of her, and taking up most of the western side of the roof was the large dome. She gave a nod towards them and asked, "What are those two rooms? Are you going to give me the tour for them?"

"Nah, I'm nowhere near done with those two," Naruto said as he reclined next to the Fifth and turned his face towards the breeze. It wasn't exactly evening yet, but it was getting late enough that the wind was getting cooler. "In all honesty, I haven't even really started on them yet. It'll probably take me a month to finish them, once I actually sit down and start working on each one…I don't know for sure though. Now that the house is finished, I'll probably work on them at night after my training for the day is done."

"I see. So are you going to tell me how you built a house in the middle of the woods in less than a week?" The Hokage asked as she idly watched the shifting expanse of green foliage around them.

Naruto got comfortable before telling Tsunade all about how he'd met a strange gnome in his travels and lived with him for a couple months. How he'd also worked with a ninja construction crew and learned everything he'd ever need to know about building a house. He explained the details regarding the power plant, space, and entrance seals and their functions. He told her how a kage bunshin army easily became the perfect construction crew as they were exactly synchronized to each other, they never needed to take breaks, and they could work round the clock on a task. He also mentioned how he used a blood clone to replace himself and oversee the construction while he went off and trained. The Hokage interrupted at one point to ask how the watch tower was held up and Naruto explained how the house's entire frame was reinforced steel that everything else had been built over. He had figured it'd be a good idea to have an extremely strong house if he was going to be walking around with a gravity seal on all the time.

He finally fell silent, leaving Tsunade to mull over what she'd learned. She got a thoughtful look on her face and asked, "And the furniture? Your weapons, tools, scrolls, the bathtub…How did you pack all that stuff here?"

"Storage seal that I used on a bag I keep in my side-pouch. It can compress and carry several thousand pounds of objects," Naruto calmly replied as he patted the leather holster strapped to his thigh.

"Another demon seal?" The Fifth questioned, looking at the side-pouch suspiciously.

"Nope, normal seals. Learned it from Ero-sennin, believe it or not," The kitsune answered with a bit of a grin. At Tsunade's surprised look, he said, "What? He knows more about seals than any human on this continent, including you and the snake-freak. How do you think he carried around all those dirty books, telescopes, and scrolls?"

"I guess that's why I've never been able to catch him with any evidence," Tsunade grumbled with a frown marring her pretty features.

"Speaking of Ero-sennin, have you heard from him?" Naruto suddenly asked.

"Yes, I have. He's picked up a lead on the Akatsuki that he can't ignore. It might expose some of the holes in his spy network, so he has to look into it. His letter said it won't take more than couple weeks and then he'll head straight back as fast as he can. He should be here before you absorb the next part of the Kyuubi's power," The Godaime answered in a brisk tone. She gave the teen a curious look and asked, "By the way, how far along are you with your training?"

Naruto paused and critically analyzed his progress over the last week. He'd improved, but not as much as he'd wanted to. That's not to say he was growing slowly, but it wasn't enough to keep up with his self imposed schedule. Between all the distractions and reunions, he hadn't been able to train uninterrupted. Well with the house done and Jiraiya out of town, he should be able to make his planned date if he worked his ass off. He could even double his training during the last week when his body was tough enough to handle the extra work.

"I'm doing alright. Good, but not as much as I want. I'm going to have to work hard if I want to meet my deadline," He finally replied. He gave a helpless shrug and said, "What can I say? I've been a popular guy the last few days. Seems like everyone who's ever even glanced at me is coming out of the woodwork. Hell, I've run into a couple people I haven't even officially met before."

"Hmm, I kind of expected that. Honestly, I'm surprised there haven't been any serious encounters yet. That'll probably change once word gets out you're back in town. We'll avoid letting it leak that you're truly the Kyuubi now…Though if that actually changes people's opinions of you, then it just proves they been nothing but cowardly hypocrites for deliberately using a child as their scapegoat this whole time," Tsunade's voice turned dark at the last part of her statement. She was very _displeased_ with the way the villagers had acted since the Kyuubi attack. She was even more upset with the elder ninjas and the Sandaime for allowing such actions to take place. She was _definitely_ going to do something about that.

"Well, it doesn't matter too much now. I won't hide, but I'm not going to advertise my changes either. Besides, you and Iruka-sensei are the only ones who know the whole story anyways, unless you told Ero-sennin," Naruto calmly answered as he held his hand up and slowly gathered a few faints wisps of blue chakra in his hand. He formed them into little pinpricks of light and allowed them to float away on the breeze.

"No, I didn't. You probably don't know this, but his spy network was breeched by the Akatsuki. We aren't trusting any messages relating to you or the Kyuubi to ninjas or carrier eagles. I just told him to come back as fast as he can," The Hokage said while watching the willow wisps of light meander about in the air and slowly fade away. She gave the kitsune a sharp look and said, "You swore Umino-san to secrecy right? I don't doubt for a minute that news of your change will get out to the public eventually somehow, but I still don't want it being leaked by one of us."

"He won't say a word. His parents were killed by the Kyuu…by me," Naruto said with a slightly downcast expression. "It's not a topic he likes to discuss with anyone. Ever. The Third was the only exception and I think that's just because the old man was the Hokage. Iruka-sensei and I had a talk a couple days ago and in three hours we talked more about the fox than we have in the three years since I found out about it."

Tsunade gave him a long and penetrating look before nodding. She grew quiet for several moments, pondering over something in her head. After awhile she spoke up, "You know, blaming yourself for the Kyuubi's actions is absurd. So is blaming yourself for anything bad Naruto ever did. Or taking credit for any good either of them did. You're a new person. Whatever sins your two 'parents' committed aren't reflected on you, at least as far as I'm concerned. I don't doubt for a moment that if you were the Kyuubi alone you would try to finish the job you started almost fifteen years ago. I also don't doubt that if you were only Naruto, you'd want to protect this place with your life, regardless of the villagers hatred or your friends' belief that you're nothing but an idiot with a lot of stamina. As both of them combined, you're starting in a very neutral position.

"The events that happened during the lives of Uzumaki Naruto and the Kyuubi no Kitsune are very important and should never be forgotten by you or anyone else. However, their pasts can't be allowed to control your future. You are who you are and you should make the decisions of your life as you see fit, not how Naruto or the Kyuubi would go about doing things. Take their memories; keep them and learn from them, but don't let them chain you down. And don't let the rest of the world hate you for something you aren't anymore. Life is too short to worry about the past."

Naruto stared at Tsunade for over a full minute before he managed to say, "Have I ever told how smart you are? I mean really, do you have any idea how freaking intelligent that was? No wonder you're the Godaime, Nee-chan."

An uncharacteristic pinkish tinge appeared on the Fifth's cheeks at the awe in the teen's voice. She had no idea where her little speech came from, but now that she'd said it she could see the truth in her words. Her blush faded as she considered the meaning behind her last sentence.

"Yeah, I'm pretty smart, but I'm not smart enough to learn my own lesson," Tsunade muttered, mostly to herself. Two wonderful, pure and smiling faces floated up in her mind, bringing forth a plethora of emotions from her heart. Just as quickly though, two others faces, these bloodstained and haunted, appeared in front of the first two. Try as she might, she couldn't quite banish the stained ones from her mind. They hung there in her thoughts, staring at her accusingly while blocking her view of the ones that brought her happiness. She frowned, losing herself in her thoughts.

She must've been really out of it, because she nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand touched her shoulder. She turned, meeting the odd pair of twilight blue eyes staring at her. At Naruto's curious look, she shrugged off her lapse and said, "Nothing. Forget about it. So…Now that the tour's over…You gonna make a wind bed thingy for me or not?"

Naruto snorted at the pleading tone and grinned.

* * *

Time flies when you're having fun. Well for the whole month of May, Naruto wasn't exactly having what he'd call fun. The first of June rolled around surprisingly fast, all things considered.

Training had been rough. Word had finally gotten out about the 'demon-brat' returning to Konoha, so he took to sticking around the hollow to avoid any unpleasant confrontations (Tsunade would be very annoyed if he lost his temper and splattered some idiot's brains all over the ground.) He only came to the inner village during the evening, either to eat dinner with Tsunade and Shizune or to visit Iruka.

And to raid Ichiraku every other day (the old man had never been happier.)

Every day he got off his comfy Wind Cushion and went to the dojo to do his normal exercises. Then he went jogging through the dirt paths that wandered through the back woods and orchards for a couple hours. With his warm-up finished, he got serious and ran top speed through the forests, using them as natural obstacle courses. Running, leaping, flipping, dodging through and over countless boulders and logs at high speeds with 3Gs of gravity pressing on him for several hours a day was almost as brutal as the Yajin-kage's training. The results were what Naruto had hoped for. His body was harder, denser, and considerably stronger than it had been when he first started his exercises. Add in some old fashioned water walking (which was _very_ hard at 3Gs) to further hone his chakra control and he was good to go.

…He hoped.

Naruto was currently pacing a bit in nervousness in his kitchen. He had taken off his bandages for the day, and was wearing only his shorts and his (still torn) t-shirt. Seeing as his left arm was now mostly exposed, every time he managed to calm himself down he'd glance at the spiral shaped key seal on his inner forearm and start to get nervous all over again. Despite having unlocked three parts of the Kyuubi's chakra already, the prospect of unlocking more scared the bleeding crap out of him.

He had no real idea how strong he needed to be to handle the next unit of demon chakra. He was almost totally in the dark about how much strain his body could handle. The first unit he'd unlocked was easy for him to handle. His body had been more than strong enough for it. Likewise, the second unit went well as well. It had started to push it, but it had still been manageable. No, it wasn't the first two times that had been worried. It was the third time he unlocked a unit that had him scared now.

It was only because Maruishi was as good a trainer of shinobi as he was the Hyougakage that Naruto was alive.

Naruto had overestimated his body's strength when he unsealed the third portion of the Kyuubi's chakra. As a result, it started to burn him alive. He'd had no idea what to do as the chakra was burning out of control and seemingly without an end in sight. Maruishi had been present (thank Kami) and immediately took charge. The Hyougakage had the kitsune perform the strongest level of kage bunshin possible and to pour as much of the demon chakra into the jutsu as he could. The logic was that a user's chakra was divided evenly amongst shadow clones and the teen could cut down how much demon chakra was in his body. When the smoke settled, even the grizzled old man couldn't hide his shock at the sight of over four thousand Narutos standing about with dazed expressions on their faces.

The Yajin-kage then gave Naruto a crash course in a jutsu that was basically the freezing version of Katon: Goukakyuu. He'd then made the kitsune perform it repeatedly until all of his chakra was exhausted. Naruto's tongue and lips had been frostbitten by the time he ran out of chakra, but he had lived. That had been the start of his training under the Hyougakage. Maruishi kept him exhausted and dead on his feet for weeks, not giving his body time to build up dangerously high levels of chakra. Naruto himself had little memory of that time, as he'd been a living zombie since he was only allowed to sleep for a couple hours at a time. In time, his chakra control and body grew powerful enough to handle the extra load, but those first few weeks were a waking nightmare.

Still, he managed to impress the hell out of Maruishi and piss off Tsurara at the same time, so it worked out okay in the end.

That didn't mean Naruto was eager to have a repeat performance. It had been five months since he unlocked the third unit of demon chakra. Between the Yajin-kage's training and his own workouts, the kitsune's strength had grown tremendously. He was pretty sure he was ready for the next chakra infusion, but then again, he'd thought he was ready the last time too.

Naruto stood up straight and forced himself to calm down. He wasn't a chicken-shit by any means and if he did overload himself, he'd ask Tsunade or Jiraiya to do the exact same thing for him that Maruishi did. He'd work his ass off till he was strong enough to handle it and they could keep him going when he started to lag.

His sharp ears picked up a dignified knock at his front door, which effectively distracted him from the last of his thoughts. The kitsune walked through the house to the landing and took a moment to compose himself before opening it.

"NARUTOOO!"

"GYAAHH!"

**SLAM!**

Naruto held his hand over his pounding heart and leaned against his door. That had been the LAST thing he expected to see. He'd learned to recognize Tsunade's knock as she'd occasionally dropped by the house from time to time during the past month (he'd adapted the entrance seal to let her in), but that face had been one hundred percent perverted old guy with attention issues. Hmm…He'd slammed the door on Jiraiya's face pretty hard. Maybe he should see if he killed him.

He resisted the urge to cross his fingers as he opened the door and stepped outside.

Tsunade was standing next to a twitching pile of modern art (…err, Sannin) with an annoyed look on her face. Iruka stood nearby, but his attention was focused solely on the size and design of the house. The schoolteacher's jaw had been hanging in the air ever since the Hokage casually mentioned that it took Naruto only six days to build. He gave a vague wave to the kitsune as he walked up to them, but kept his attention riveted on the building.

"Is it dead?" Naruto casually asked as he gave the pile of outlandish robes a firm kick.

"We can only hope…" Tsunade dryly replied as she glared at the pathetic mass on the ground.

There was a blur of movement as, in a split second, Jiraiya went from a catatonic mess to towering over Naruto and roaring, "What the hell was that for, brat!"

"I saw your ugly face and panicked!" The teen yelled back. "If I had a weaker heart, I could've been killed!"

"That can be arranged runt!"

"Try it geezer!"

"Ungrateful little ass!"

"Perverted old fart!"

"Idiot!"

"Loser!"

"Twerp!"

"Ugly!"

Tsunade sighed and walked over next to Iruka as the name calling degenerated into a brawl when her old teammate tackled his student. She rolled her eyes as Naruto screamed at her to get the 'drooling old guy' off him while Jiraiya yelled obscenities about the 'mutinous little bastard' being the worst student he'd ever trained (completely ignoring the fact that he'd only trained a grand total of four people in his entire life.)

"Did this happen often at the Academy?" She asked Iruka while plugging one ear at a sudden loud squalling in the background. Jiraiya stopped the god-awful noise just long enough to roar that biting was cheating before returning to the fight…and ignoring his own rule when the opportunity presented itself a couple seconds later.

"Huh? Did you say something Hokage-sama?" Iruka said in a distracted manner, still in awe of the weird house that Naruto built. The schoolteacher was apparently oblivious to the fight going on right next to him. Years of being around loudmouth wannabe-ninjas had honed a formidable selective hearing ability in him.

Tsunade let out another sigh and said, "Never mind."

The Fifth decided to take matters into her own hands…literally. Three paces over and two hard yanks had both combatants off the ground and in midair. Naruto was short enough that he hung easily by the scruff of his t-shirt, but Jiraiya was a bit worse off as Tsunade had to yank him up by his pants to lift him off the ground.

"Ack, dammit Nee-chan!"

"Kami, woman! You're cutting off the circulation to some very important parts!"

"Both of you idiots shut up," Tsunade ordered before dropping them both unceremoniously on the ground. "Now, we're here to make sure nothing goes wrong with the demon infusion, right? Jiraiya, you could at least pretend to have missed your student a little more and Naruto…No one's going to elect a Kage who mutinied against his teacher. Got it?"

The two shinobi grumbled something.

"_Got it_?" The Godaime growled, doing a _very_ good imitation of a demon herself.

"Got it!" Student and master immediately replied as cold shivers went up their spines.

"Alright, Naruto, where do you want to do this?" Tsunade asked when she was convinced the two idiots weren't going to attack each other again.

"Err, I guess near the pool would be okay," Naruto replied with a shrug. As he turned to walk towards the creek, the others could here him mutter darkly, "Safest place, considering I'm about to torch myself."

Tsunade grabbed the still awed Iruka and hauled him after Jiraiya and Naruto. The kitsune stopped at the stone edge of the rocky pool in the northeast section of his property. A recent rainstorm had swelled the water reservoir higher than normal and had increased the strength of the waterfall enough that it was pounding down the face of the short cliff. A fine mist was rising from the pool and it gently spread across the teen's face. He motioned for the others to stay back a good ten feet or so.

"Alright, this is going to get _hot_ so don't get too close. If it looks like I'm burning out of control, hit me with a jutsu to throw me into the pool, okay? _Don't_ knock me out…That just makes things worse. I'll try to make as many kage bunshins as I can when I'm in the water and we'll deal with the rest afterwards," Naruto said as he stretched his arms a bit to work off some nervous energy.

Tsunade and Jiraiya immediately caught onto the wisdom behind using the shadow clones to cut excessive chakra levels. Iruka, not knowing anything about kage bunshins beyond the obvious, resolved to follow the Hokage's lead. He _really_ hoped this wasn't going to be as bad as Naruto was making it sound. He was about to see the Kyuubi's power in person for the first time since he was a kid and it was going to be coming out of his closest friend.

Understandably, the chuunin still wasn't sure what his exact feelings were on this whole mess.

"Now I'm going to scream and yell and holler like I'm being…well, burned alive but don't do anything unless you actually see me being damaged. If my clothes and hair start burning off and my skin starts melting, _then _do something. Until then, just let me deal with it. Everyone understand?" Naruto asked, his voice taking on a slightly authoritative tone. The gathered shinobi nodded, though the two Sannin didn't bother to hide their smirks at the kitsune's little leadership display.

Naruto let out a deep breath and lifted his left arm in front of him.

"Here it goes."

With a practiced gesture, he smoothly grew his thumbnail sharp and pricked the tip of his index finger open. He let a drop of blood gather, then _carefully_ pressed the digit down on the red dot closest to the last blue dot on his seal (he wasn't sure if it was possible, but he definitely didn't want to unlock two units at a time.) There was a sensation like an electric shock at the tip of his finger, letting him know the chakra was connected through the blood. One thing left to do.

"Unseal," Naruto commanded in a low voice.

A bubbling hiss came from his arm as the small drops of blood began to boil. The black line that ran up his arm and connected to the master seal on his back turned red and glowed like fire. Naruto could actually feel the chakra as it moved up his skin and across his shoulder. It touched the Heaven's Gate and for an instant a cool sensation spread across his back; the same feeling one gets when they've been burned but the pain hasn't hit yet.

Then fire exploded out of his chest and engulfed him.

It coiled and writhed all about his body like living red-orange serpents. He remained frozen with his hand on his arm as every muscle in his body went into spasms, then locked up tight. Naruto couldn't see much through the flames covering his face, though he could see the vague black outlines of his arms. The fire flowed all about him for several moments before it finally stabilized into an aura. He gritted his teeth.

'Here comes the rough part.'

Raw chakra emptied out of his back and into the fire aura. The flames channeled all that power instantly right back into him through his opening points. It felt like burning acid was flowing through his veins as the demonic chakra traveled a reverse path into his chakra coils. When the first burst of it hit his inner system, Naruto couldn't help but throw back his head and scream in agony. The chakra swelled in him, filling every part of his body to the bursting point. Every cell and tissue fiber was bathed in fire.

Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Iruka could only stare at the sight of a living bonfire in front of them.

Naruto hadn't been kidding when he'd warned them to stay back. Everything within five feet of him was engulfed in the inferno of his aura. He himself was only a black-red silhouette that could barely be seen through the flames. His roaring screams echoed unnaturally throughout his hollow as a deeper, _darker_ voice joined his. The chakra itself was powerful, but it didn't dominate the senses like they'd been half expecting.

Naruto's chakra grew to its natural peak and continued to grow as more and more of the demon chakra entered him. Over the course of three agonizing minutes, his inner coils were put into overdrive as power was hammered through them. It was _almost _too much for him to handle. But his heavy conditioning and his Bloodline pulled through for him.

Each of those cells and tissue fibers that were being bombarded with chakra opened themselves up to it and drew the power in. The strained and battered Demonic Gates and inner coils adapted and shifted to channel the energy properly. Where a normal person or even someone with a Bloodline Limit would find their body crumpling from the strain, barely able to control its own power, Naruto found his welcoming the energy and growing from its presence.

Almost as quickly as it started, the fire aura faded away as the last of the demon chakra coursed through it. Naruto's last screams of pain faded as well. By the time his aura gave one last burst and blew away on the wind in flaming wisps, he was back in control of himself. An uncomfortable silence reigned for several moments as the gathered ninja watched their friend remain frozen like a statue.

The spell ended when Naruto let out a shuddering breath and let his arms flop to his sides. He glanced down just long enough to see the fourth dot ripple and turn blue-white, then looked up to his family.

"Not bad, huh?"

His air of coolness was unfortunately broken when he toppled forward and smacked into the ground face first.

* * *

It wasn't a serious faint. Naruto didn't fully pass out, he just lost most of his senses for several minutes. Tsunade easily assessed his status and carried him inside. The next thing he was aware of was a glass of cold water being pushed under his face.

"Drink it all. I'm sure that little stunt dehydrated half the moisture out of you," Came the Fifth's stern voice.

The kitsune obeyed and he found the cold liquid refreshed him enough to return to his senses. He was sitting slouched over at his kitchen table with Tsunade standing in front of him and Iruka next to him holding him up. As the dizziness faded, the teen waved off the overprotective chuunin and leaned back in his chair. The schoolteacher refused to go far and chose to sit down next to his young friend.

"So…Not bad, huh?" Naruto asked, belatedly realizing he was panting as though he'd just been through a serious workout. He focused his senses inwards and noted that the extra chakra was perfectly stable in his system and his maximum demon chakra had been increased. He'd judged his body's prowess at just the right level. Hopefully the next time would be just as successful.

Tsunade snorted and took a seat across from the half-demon.

"You scared the living hell out of us, you brat. What the hell did you mean when you said to watch if you were burning alive or not? We couldn't see anything through that fire aura of yours," She grumbled at him.

"Eh…Sorry about that. That light show was a bit higher than I remembered it being," Naruto said while sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

"You don't do that often do you?" Iruka asked in a worried voice.

"About once every six months. Four or five if I've been training my ass off," The kitsune shrugged. "If I'm absolutely die hard about it, _maybe_ three though that's seriously pushing it. I wouldn't try that unless it was an emergency."

"Hmm, at the rate you're going it'll be decades before you unlock all of the Kyuubi's chakra," Tsunade commented as she did the simple math in her head.

"Maybe…I think after the first ten notches or so things might start to pick up. With the Unlimiter, my body should adapt over time to the repeated stress and come to handle it easier. I'd say ten or fifteen years, but who knows for sure?" Naruto replied.

"What's the Unlimiter?" Iruka asked with a blank look on his face. To his surprise, it was Tsunade rather than Naruto who answered him.

"The Bloodline Unlimiter is an old and near perfect Advanced Bloodline," The Fifth stated, her pretty features frowning in thought. "I don't know a lot about it, but it's supposed to take off all the body's maximum limits for physical, mental, and chakra adaptations. Basically unlimited growth, hence the name. A person bearing the Unlimiter will never stop growing in strength and knowledge till the day they die. One of the major benefits of having the Bloodline is that the body and mind can handle almost any form of stress applied to it, even to the point of adapting to take advantage of it."

"…Stress? But what would that…Oh, right. The Kyuubi," The schoolteacher answered himself. He looked to Naruto and asked, "So, your body has adapted to the demon…err, to you. I mean…You know what I mean."

"Yep. My healing factor, my unnatural stamina, my whisker-marks, the fact that I didn't die when the demon was put in me or go insane…That was all the Unlimiter's work," The kitsune said. He gave a sharp look towards Tsunade and commented, "You seem to know a lot about the Unlimiter. You must know my real family name then."

"Your real surname?" Iruka said with a puzzled look.

"The Unlimiter was a clan Bloodline, similar to the Hyuugas and their Byakugan," Naruto said in a firm voice. "I know for a fact that no one else has or has ever borne the name Uzumaki in this Village. Logically then, my name was given to me by Sandaime, either to protect me or my clan. I honestly don't care what reason he had. I want to know the name of the clan I belong to."

"The Kyuubi didn't know?" The Iruka questioned.

"It knew about the Unlimiter, but it never mentioned the actual name of the clan. I haven't absorbed any memories referring to my family. Every time I've tried to find some, I always get some oddball memory about something else. I have no idea whether or not the fox actually knew my clan name," the kitsune explained. To the Hokage, he asked, "Well, do you know it or not?"

Tsunade had remained silent through their entire exchange and remained quiet for several long moments, deliberating about what to say. Naruto would not be pleased when she told him this.

"I have my suspicions and I'm pretty sure I know the clan name, but I can't tell you right now," She finally said. Her face was firm, but tired looking.

"…Why?" Naruto asked after a long moment. His lack of an explosive reaction disconcerted Iruka, though Tsunade had come to expect such changes in his behavior. His voice, though, was laced with restrained fury and his incandescent eyes seemed to burn brighter.

"Because the records around the time of the Kyuubi are terrible and I'm not totally sure if I'm right or not. Because if word leaked out, you would have some _very _powerful enemies both abroad and here in Konoha. Because they're all dead anyways and they wouldn't want you endangered just over something as silly as a clan name. Because it could be a disaster if word got to the Council. Because it would be your strongest trump card if played against the Council at just the right time. Because I have no idea how you'd react if you knew the truth," Tsunade rattled off in a clinical tone. Her eyes were steely through most of her dialogue, but they softened as she spoke her next words. "Because I care about you a great deal and I don't want to give you false hope just in case I'm wrong. I don't want you to be dealt a blow like that."

Naruto held her eyes for several long moments before he relented. Tsunade had her reasons and she _was_ the Hokage after all. He was still her subordinate, regardless of their personal relationship. If she was holding back information this important to him, then it was likely for the safety of Konoha overall, though he was damned if he could see how.

"Alright, I'll trust you on this…for now. I do want to know soon though, Nee-chan," The kitsune finally said, effectively ending the tense air that had settled on the table.

"Thank you for trusting me, Naruto. I promise you I'm not doing this because I want to," Tsunade replied. She hid a smile at the confused look on Iruka's face as he glanced back and forth between them. Undoubtedly he was confused by the out of character reaction from Naruto. Well, she had something to distract their thoughts. "I have something that'll cheer you up though. I got the news a couple days ago and I've been saving it for tonight. Jiraiya and I also have a couple gifts to mark the occasion."

"Wait…Where the hell is that pervert?" Naruto said with a dawning look of horror as he realized his sensei hadn't been there for any of the conversation. If Jiraiya had been absent this whole time, that'd mean…

"Hey, did someone say my name?" The Toad-Hermit in question said as he strode into the kitchen from the hall. He gave Naruto a glance and said, "Nice bachelor pad you got here. Your girly mag collection is a bit low though."

"I don't have _any_ porno crap in my house!" Naruto yelled at his old teacher.

"You do now, hee hee," Jiraiya replied with a depraved grin.

"Whoa! Settle!" Tsunade yelled as she grabbed onto Naruto as he dove across the table at his teacher. She shoved the kitsune back into his chair and said, "_You_ are in no condition to fight and _you_" -Towards her old teammate- "Had better clean any of your smut out of this house before we leave."

Iruka just shook his head and rubbed his temples as the arguing escalated around him. Why, oh why, did he choose to befriend Naruto all those years ago? Granted, the kitsune was fun to be around, but he had also been a never ending source of migraines for the schoolteacher. As if he didn't have enough to deal with while trying to get Konohamaru to pass his genin exams.

Several minutes and lots of shouting later, Tsunade managed to restore order in the kitchen, though Jiraiya and Naruto kept exchanging glares.

"Alright, as everyone knows I have a bit of good news for you Naruto," The Fifth said to the kitsune. She paused, then gave him a warm smile as she said, "Or should I say, genin."

Naruto blinked for a couple seconds, as a slowly growing grin appeared on his face. He said, "So you managed to get me reinstated, huh?"

"Yep, something I'm a bit proud of. It wasn't easy to talk them down from executing you to granting you a position in our forces, but I managed," Tsunade replied with a smug look. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she gave Naruto a once over. "You aren't going on active duty looking like _that_ are you?"

The kitsune glanced down at his ragged clothes and gave a sheepish shrug.

"I haven't gotten around to getting a new outfit yet. I wore coveralls the whole time I was in Glacier Country, so I didn't really notice how bad they were getting," Naruto said as he picked at a tear in his sleeve.

"What happened to the outfit you always wear?" Iruka asked curiously.

"That outfit…didn't exactly survive Wind Country," The blonde teen answered with a dark expression. At the chuunin's look he flatly said, "Gaara burned my jacket. Said it was hurting his eyes. I didn't speak to him for three days afterwards. I think the only reason he didn't burn my pants as well was because he had no desire to see me in my underwear. Not that burning them would have made a difference, seeing as how I tore them to shreds running from the Akatsuki."

"Well, lucky for you that's part of our gifts," Tsunade interjected. She pulled out a rectangular box from seemingly nowhere and slid it across the table to the kitsune. "Welcome back to Konoha, Naruto."

Naruto curiously looked from the box to the faces of the gathered shinobi. Not even Iruka gave any indication that they knew what was inside, but all of them seemed eager for him to open it. He reached out and pulled the gift towards himself, realizing it was made out some thick oak tag as he did so. There wasn't any wrapping or tape on it, so he just lifted the lid right off. Some sort of odd bundle lay covered in tissue paper, which he quickly brushed away. His eyes narrowed in confusion until he lifted the object out.

It was a long-sleeve, semi-casual shirt…an _orange_ long-sleeve, semi-casual shirt.

**Orange**.

Naruto nearly broke out giggling at the coolness of the color. It wasn't a dark color, nor was it extremely gaudy like his old jumpsuit was. In fact, it was a similar color to the light orange spiral in his landing, though this didn't have a chrome sheen to it. Still, it looked awesome. When he turned it around, he blinked at the sight of a black spiral that took up the entire back. It looked good, but he was still surprised at the sight. Without thinking, he tore his black t-shirt off and pulled on his new one right in front of his guests (who watched him in amusement.)

Damn, it felt good too. Like water made into cloth.

"What's this made out of?" He asked as he fiddled with the buttons.

"Silk," Tsunade replied casually, though she wasn't trying very hard to hide her smile. At Naruto's shocked look, she explained, "Believe it or not, silk can stop arrows and thrown weapons to some degree. The material binds up around it as it enters the body and makes pulling out the arrow head or blade much easier. I'm considering that an investment to keep you alive, so you better not get yourself killed on any missions…Got it?"

Naruto nodded as he shifted the collar around. Tsunade must have gotten this design on purpose. The long sleeves would hide the seal marks on his arms and the buttons in the front would make getting to his gravity and spirit bind seals much easier. He reached into the box and pulled out the next article of clothing.

"Shizune had to rail at the tailor for an hour to get him to put those designs in right, so you'd better thank her the next time you see her," The Fifth stated, though there was no real command in her voice. The kitsune nodded in agreement and briefly ducked into the living room to put it on.

When he came back, Naruto was wearing a pair of black pants that seemed to be made out of a lightweight denim of some sort. They felt pretty comfortable and they didn't hinder his movement at all. The designs Tsunade spoke of were two identical spirals that rested on the outside of his hips just underneath his pockets. While he was sure it hadn't been dyed in, each spiral was the same color of orange as his shirt. He didn't see or feel any patches or sewn on grafts or anything like that, so he assumed some sort of tailoring jutsu had been used on it. The pants looked great with the spirals and it made his whole outfit look cool, with its inverted color scheme.

"You still have something else in there," Iruka said as he gestured to the box. He gave a stage whisper as he said, "I had this one made."

Naruto lifted the last article of clothing out and let out a whistle. He held up the vest and said, "Damn, this a nice piece of gear."

The vest was _very_ nice. It was the same black as his pants, though it seemed even darker with the strange material it was made of. The outside was plain and smooth, but on the inside were all sorts of hidden pockets. The front was flexible to some degree, but the upper back was pretty stiff. Naruto squeezed both parts and rubbed it between his fingers.

"Body armor?" He asked Iruka as he felt the hidden plates. The schoolteacher nodded.

"Yep. Hokage-sama isn't the only one who wants you to stay alive. The man who made that said it's some sort of material based on some stuff dug out of the ruined cities. It's nowhere near as good as the original armors, but it'll stop or deflect light blows and weapons. Just don't depend on it to block any high powered jutsu, okay?" The dark-haired chuunin said, reverting into a similar tone he used when lecturing his students.

Naruto nodded and spun the vest around to look at the back. He almost dropped it in shock at what he saw.

A spiral. A red spiral. A red, _nine-lined_ spiral. The symbol of Kyuubi.

He looked over and met Iruka's eyes. The chuunin stared at him with an unreadable, yet intense expression for several long moments before giving the teen a nod. Naruto understood what he meant. Branding an object that would be used to protect Naruto's life with the demon's symbol was Iruka's way of saying he accepted who and _what_ Naruto had become. Undoubtedly he wasn't pleased, but he still accepted it. Considering how close the man was to the memory of his parents, this must have been a very hard gesture for him to make. The human part of Naruto wanted to cry while the demon part respected the mental sacrifice the chuunin must have made to give him this gift.

Naruto nodded in return, his eyes giving a message of relief and happiness.

The mood broke when Jiraiya coughed uncomfortably. Sappy shit had never gone down well with the Toad-Hermit.

"Put on your vest and stop making goo-goo eyes at each other. It's time for my present!" The Sannin declared in his usual loud tone.

Naruto shrugged his vest on and slid the zipper up, before asking, "What could you possibly have that I'd need, Ero-sennin? Unless, of course, you have my frog wallet and all my cash in it."

Jiraiya shrugged a little nervously at the mention of the frog wallet before changing the subject by declaring, "Behold! I present you with the symbol of the Leaf!"

The kitsune's hand blurred as he caught the object tossed to him. He glanced at it for a moment before letting it dangle by its cloth in front of him.

A forehead protector. More accurately, _his_ forehead protector. It was the same one Iruka had given him the night he had stolen the Forbidden Scroll almost three years ago. The black cloth was in some serious need of repair or perhaps even a total replacement. He had put some heavy wear and tear on it even before he left to train with the ero-sennin. A year and a half traveling and training had turned the material into a ragged mess. Here and there though, he could see the tears and nicks that had been on it when he first received it. Iruka hadn't gone on many missions, but he had still managed to wear it down.

"Sorry about the cloth. I ran out of cash on my way back and I couldn't get it replaced," Jiraiya said in an apologetic tone.

"You mean my cash," Naruto casually replied as he stared at the dinged and lightly scratched metal. He gave his former sensei a look and said, "Forget about it, Ero-sennin. It's fine the way it is. Thank you, all of you, for the presents."

The gathered shinobi made sounds of nonchalant acceptance (though it was obvious they were pleased) as the kitsune tucked the small piece of armor into his pocket. He looked up at his ex-sensei and said, "Actually, if you want to give me something else…Would you mind letting me borrow the Toad contract for a minute? The back door is right there, if you need to summon the frog that's holding it."

Jiraiya gave him a confused look before he shrugged and stepped out the back. While he was busy calling up the frog, Naruto was pulling his vest off and unbuttoning the top half of his shirt. He peeled it back and swiped a bloody finger along the Flesh Burn seal. A muffled boom echoed outside as the Toad-Hermit completed his summon.

"Here you go, brat. What's it for?" Jiraiya said, tossing the large scroll to Naruto as he came back inside.

"Thanks," The kitsune said as he opened it and spread it out on his table. He located his name and cut open his finger again. As he traced his name, he explained, "I lost the ability to summon the toads after the fusion. I'm kind of like a totally new person, so any contracts Naruto or Kyuubi signed have to be done over again. Most cases it's simply a matter of resigning them like this."

He paused twice as he traced his name to reopen his cut. When Naruto finished, he swiped the Flesh Burn seal again and cleaned all the blood off him before doing his shirt up.

"I never thought of that. Makes sense though. Blood contracts aren't automatically passed from parent to child, so why would you be any different?" Jiraiya said mostly to himself. Tsunade had repeated what she'd learned from Naruto when he'd gotten back to town. Honestly, he didn't see what the big deal was. It wasn't like the stubborn brat would let the demon side take over, so there wasn't any real problem in his book. In fact, he now had bragging rights as the sensei to someone who was likely going to be the strongest person on the continent within a couple years.

'Beat that, Orochi-chan,' The white-haired man thought smugly. In his head a chibi version of himself taunted his old rival saying, 'My student's stronger than yoooours, nya-nya-nyah!'

"Here you go," Naruto said as he rolled the scroll up and passed it back to the Sannin. Fortunately, blood dried quick on contract scrolls. "There were a couple of times this last year when I would have killed to have been able to summon Gamabunta. I managed to get another summoning contract, but not much beats the Boss Toad when it comes to fighting."

"Another one? What animal?" Tsunade asked curiously.

Naruto shrugged and cut his finger open again. He smeared it along the inside of his first two fingers and pressed them into the middle of his table.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu," The kitsune calmly said. There was a puff of smoke and a large black bird appeared. It cawed a couple times and eyed Naruto. He waved his hand and said, "It's nothing. I was just showing you off. You can go if you want."

The raven gave a polite bow and disappeared in a cloud of ninja smoke.

"Ravens?" Jiraiya muttered thoughtfully.

"Carrion birds in general," Naruto corrected. "Ravens, crows, buzzards, vultures, and one big ass bird from a land across the eastern ocean that's called a condor. The size of the birds isn't enhanced by the summoning so they're not fighters by any means. Still, they make good spies and messengers. The Hidden Ice has almost all of their Hunter-nins sign a minor contract so they can use the crows and ravens to carry messages around while they're deep in other countries. Yajin-kage and a couple of the higher ups use the full summoning contract and he had me sign it while I trained under him."

"Well, I can see why you'd use them…They're not as flashy or as well known as carrier eagles and…" Tsunade started to say before trailing off and wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"Yeah, even if you suspect them of carrying a message, who'd want to catch a bird that smells like rotten meat?" Naruto replied. He wiped his hand off with a dish towel and sat down at the table. "So…you mentioned a team awhile back. Who's on it?"

Tsunade let a small smirk creep up on her face.

"Actually, I think you might be familiar with them."

* * *

"Well, did Hokage-sama say who it was?" Ino asked with a slightly tense voice. She rhythmically tapped her kunai against the side of the wooden post she sat on, slowly working a notch into it.

"No, she didn't. She did say we'd know him though," Kakashi replied as he idly flipped through a worn copy of Icha Icha. He'd already read it twenty-five times over the last six months and was desperate to find out what would happen next. Unfortunately, Jiraiya-sama had taken the disruption of his spy network as a personal insult and had been too busy the past year purging and rebuilding it to spend any time on his dirty novels. The latest volume would likely be delayed for months or maybe even a full year.

For that reason alone, Kakashi seriously considered hunting down every last Akatsuki member. Or at the very least mailing them some sort of bomb jutsu.

"Um, Hatake?" Ino's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Yes, Ino-chan?"

"This guy apparently knows you, right?"

"…Yes."

"So he probably knows about your tardy habits, right?"

"…Yeaaaah. And your point?"

"So, do you think he doesn't know you've been personally threatened by the Hokage to show up on time to your appointments and is probably expecting you to show up three or four hours after you say you will?"

Kakashi stared at his student for several long moments as his brain came to the logical conclusion.

"We're going to be here for awhile."

Ino snorted and hopped off her pole. She stretched a little and said, "I'm going to go do some tree walking. I'll be back in an hour or two."

Kakashi sighed and said, "And I'll probably just wait around here while you go and have fun."

Ino laughed and walked off, leaving her sensei to his semi-boredom.

…Unfortunately for her, she was back sitting next to him less than an hour later. Training got boring surprisingly quickly when one was used to live combat and real missions. At least that's how it was for her. The adrenaline edge just wasn't the same when working out by herself. Sparring with Kakashi was fine, but not doing some dull exercises over and over again. If this new guy would just show up, maybe she could get some excitement by beating the crap out of him.

Ino was just about to entertain herself by poking her sensei till he reacted, when she sensed a foreign mind entering the training field. A foreign, but familiar mind.

"Hey Hatake, here he comes," The genin said as she stood up and stretched. Beside her, the jounin put away his dirty novel and stood as well.

"Well, who is he? I've been wondering about…Oh, I see," Kakashi said, his eye widening as their new teammate came into view on the path as it exited the trees. So the rumors were true. He had come back. "Tsunade-sama has a sense of humor."

Naruto cracked his neck a little as he wandered into the memorial training grounds. He'd slept like a rock the night before, managing almost seven hours before he had to get up. Unlocking a new unit of demon chakra increased his maximum reserves, but it drained him of almost all his current chakra, both normal and demon. He was feeling refreshed today though and much more energized than usual. Hopefully there weren't going to be any odd side effects as he unlocked more power in the years to come.

He really didn't want to grow something weird like horns or fur.

As he moved through a clump of trees, the kitsune spotted both of his new (and old) teammates standing by the wooden posts near the memorial slab. He grimaced a little at the thought of working on Team 7 again.

Tsunade sure as hell had a sense of humor.

He shifted his forehead protector to a more comfortable spot from where it was hanging around his neck and walked across the field to meet them. He noticed that Sakura wasn't here, though why she wasn't working as part of Team 7 he had no idea. Maybe she was continuing her training under Tsunade or something. Ino's presence wasn't much of a surprise as she'd already mentioned she was training under Kakashi. It was a bit odd that she was part of his team and not Asuma's. He must have missed a lot in the two and a half years he'd been gone.

Great. He was on a team with two people who could anticipate his every move. How fun…

Naruto almost paused in his walk as a thought occurred to him. It seemed he had an opportunity to practice that one jutsu again. He deliberately forced himself to not think any further along those lines, just in case Ino was already reading his thoughts. He'd have to come up with a way of countering that. An idea had occurred to him a couple weeks ago during a meditation session, but he hadn't come across an opportunity to try it yet. Looks like he might get one today.

"You're back. I heard the rumors, but I didn't think it would be you were the one who Tsunade-sama put on our team," Kakashi said as Naruto came up near them. The jounin didn't seem that surprised to see that the kitsune was back, which seemed a little odd. Then again, it usually took something big to throw Kakashi for a loop. "Of course, Team 7 is still your team even if you left, so I should've expected it. How've you been?"

Naruto just shrugged and simply said, "Alive."

"You got reinstated as a Leaf-nin?" Ino asked in a distracted tone as she looked the other teen up and down. That new outfit of his looked _good_ on him. He looked like a stylish embodiment of Halloween with all the orange and black colors. She briefly wondered where he got it and if they had a purple, feminine version of that vest.

"Yep. Tsunade-nee-chan must've threatened to flay them alive if they didn't let me back in," The confirmed genin replied. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised either that she put me back on Team 7. Where's our other member?"

"It's just us. Sakura hasn't shown too much interest in rejoining our team ever since I took on Ino. I haven't bothered to take on anyone else since we work well as partners," Kakashi calmly stated. He seemed to think something over for a minute before he slowly walked over to the middle of the clearing and faced Naruto. "Actually, that brings up a good point. I guess the Hokage's OK can be considered equal to passing the academy exam. That still leaves one thing though."

"And that is?" Naruto asked, his eyes narrowing. He wouldn't. That blasted copy-nin couldn't possibly…

"Well, I really should test you to be fair, shouldn't I? I did it with the first Team 7 and I did it with Ino when I took her on," The Copy-ninja stated as he gave the kitsune an assessing eye. He reached into his side pouch and pulled two bells out, then tied them to his waist. "I'll be fair though, considering you don't have two other nins to back you up. Grab at least one of these bells by…oh, let's say sunset and you'll be an official member of our team again."

"I don't fucking believe this," Naruto muttered to himself, though only Ino was close enough to hear. She winced a little in sympathy. It _was_ a pretty stupid test. Her face didn't reveal her thoughts though, as she was too interested in seeing what the other genin could do. She hopped up onto one of the posts to watch intently.

The two male shinobi stared at each other for several long moments. Naruto suddenly broke into action as he smoothly grabbed a kunai from his holster. He raised it up and prepared to throw it, only to have a strong hand grab his and forced the point of the blade to the back of his head.

"Wait, I didn't say 'go' yet," Kakashi calmly said as he restrained the kitsune. As he couldn't see the teen's eyes, he didn't notice the dark look flash through them. Ino did however, but her yelled warning wasn't anywhere near fast enough as Naruto's eye twitched.

An explosion of ninja smoke erupted around Kakashi. He started to jump away, only to freeze as he felt the point of a blade on his throat.

Or, to be more accurate, _six_ blades.

Six Narutos stood in a circle around him, each holding a kunai to a different, though equally vital spot on the jounin's neck. The two in front of him were each using a single hand to hold their blades while their empty hands firmly gripped the copy-nin's wrist, preventing him from continuing his attack on the kitsune. What grabbed the man's attention though, was not only did the clones appear in perfect positions but Naruto hadn't made so much as a half-seal to create them.

"You've…improved," Kakashi said as he glanced at the unyielding faces of the kage bunshins. He released his hold on Naruto's hand and concentrated his chakra. In a flash, he body switched with a clone and did a smooth back flip away, cracked the heads of two clones with his feet as he moved. "Not enough though."

"Perhaps…" Naruto replied with an indifferent shrug. He put his kunai away while the clones exploded into smoke. He walked out into the center of the field and faced his former sensei. "Are you ready now, Hatake-san?"

"Yes…You can attack at any time," Kakashi replied with a narrowed eye. Naruto's attitude was very different from what he'd expected. The jounin slid into a loose stance, though it wasn't a serious form as he didn't expect the teen to know any highly advanced tai-jutsu. Jiraiya was more of a nin-jutsu type of sensei.

To his total surprise, rather than diving for cover or even attacking head on, Naruto simply crossed his arms and watched him with neutral eyes.

'Where have I seen that before? It looks identical to…Gaara,' Kakashi thought to himself, his visible eye widening. Naruto's stance was _exactly _like Gaara's. That probably meant he had an absolute defense of some sort. Or at least, he _thought_ he had one.

For almost two minutes they stared at each other, neither moving in the slightest. The Copy-ninja kept expecting Naruto to explode and attack at any second as the tension mounted. It soon became obvious that the kitsune wasn't going to attack first.

"Alright, if you won't attack, I will," The jounin said and disappeared into a blur of movement.

As he didn't have the Sharingan open, he didn't risk attacking from the front. Instead, he dashed off to one side and came in at Naruto's right flank. As he didn't want to kill the teen, he held back some and went into a moderately powered round-house kick. He blinked when he felt it impact a totally different part of the body than the kitsune's upper back like he'd intended.

A clone stood next to Naruto, holding its arms up in a crisscross pattern. Kakashi's foot rested in the crook of the 'X'. Naruto himself hadn't moved or even looked at the jounin during the attack.

"So kage bunshins are your defense. Not a bad idea, but there are many flaws with that plan," Kakashi said as he twisted his body and slammed the clone in the face with his other foot. Or that's what he tried.

Another clone had appeared and had cupped his hands to catch the jounin's foot, totally blocking and protecting the first kage bunshin.

"I suppose so, Hatake-san," Naruto replied in his neutral tone. He gave a slight smirk at Ino who was paling at the thoughts she was reading from his mind.

Kakashi couldn't see the exchange and again back flipped away from the clones. They made no move to follow him and disappeared immediately. The copy-nin frowned at the lack of effort.

"You're going to wear out a lot sooner than I will making shadow clones as a shield. Get serious or you'll never pass," The jounin ordered, finally becoming annoyed with the kitsune's attitude.

"Alright," Naruto replied with a shrug. He gave a sharp look at Ino who was just about to warn her sensei. She hesitated, then remained silent. This was between Naruto and Kakashi and it wasn't her place to interfere if neither of them were actually seriously injuring each other.

The jounin in question began to nod in satisfaction at Naruto's response, only to widen his eyes and dive forward to avoid a blow to his head. He rolled into a crouch and turned to face the clone, then jumped over a leg sweep as another kage bunshin appeared next to him. He grabbed a couple shuriken and whipped them through the air into the heads of each clone. As he landed on the ground, he back flipped again to avoid yet another clone as it appeared in front of him.

To Kakashi's surprise, while he was upside down in his flip, he saw a new clone appear standing in his path and rearing its fist back. The blow to his abdomen hurt worse than it should, as his momentum propelled him onto the fist. The jounin didn't allow himself to slow down and used his now reversed momentum to roll away from the clone. He came up in a low defensive stance, ready for the next attack.

Kakashi twitched when he noticed that Naruto _still_ hadn't moved from his original position. He was creating kage bunshins without making hand seals and controlling them with a master's level of finesse. He was instantly making disposable, moving shields that could attack as quickly as they defend. How was the copy-nin going to combat such a tactic?

The jounin had no time to plan a counter strategy as the air exploded around him. He leapt straight up to avoid the grasping hands and swinging kicks that were coming his way. His jump carried him straight up almost twenty feet. He was preparing some hand seals when a cracking sound next to him drew the silver-haired man's attention.

The clone had been in mid move when it appeared and its haymaker came out of the ninja smoke too fast for Kakashi to dodge. A loud 'whud' echoed through the training grounds as the kage bunshin belted the jounin across the face. The copy-nin briefly wondered when the hell Naruto had learned to hit so damn hard, before refocusing on the situation.

Said situation being the mob of over a hundred clones waiting for him on the ground.

Several hand seals and some full powered chakra later and a water blast shaped like a dragon ripped downwards to rip apart bunshin and ground alike. Ino raised her arm to cover her face as muddy water rained across the training field and briefly blotted out the sun. Her worry over the situation grew when she noticed that Naruto hadn't twitched in the slightest, even when the dirty water spattered across his face and into his eyes. He was acting like a damn machine.

Kakashi carefully landed on the surface of the brown pool that had been formed in the wide crater left behind from his attack. He panted slightly as he gathered his chakra for his next move. That had been a weaker version of the water dragon attack he and Zabusa had used on each other. As there was no large source of water around to supply it with, he'd been forced to extract what he needed from the natural vapor in the air. That was a lot harder than it sounded, leaving his move considerably weaker than it should have been and considerably more expensive in chakra consumption. Fortunately, it was more than enough to take out a group of shadow clones. And speaking of clones…

Kakashi made a hand seal and said, "Kage bunshin no jutsu."

A loud series of echoing pops echoed as over two hundred shadow clones appeared in a line on each side of him. There, that should even the playing field a bit. The Jounin lightly cracked his knuckles and got ready to attack. His clones tensed as well, ready to follow their creator.

A louder crack resounded through the grounds. Kakashi's clones had barely registered the sound when they were all struck in the exact same spot between their shoulders. The jounin stared as his line of kage bunshins disappeared revealing a larger line of Narutos right behind each one. A couple of them gave him a cheeky wink before the whole row exploded into smoke, leaving him standing alone on the muddy water.

…Shit.

It would seem Naruto had mastered kage bunshin far beyond anyone else, including Kakashi himself. Granted, it was merely another jutsu to the jounin and Naruto always had an unnatural talent for the maneuver, but this was still an extremely high level of skill being displayed. The kitsune didn't seem the least bit winded either, where as the silver-haired man was starting to breath harder from running around and using high level jutsu. Naruto held the definite advantage in a war of attrition and the rate he was going, he'd win without lifting a hand to attack.

The Copy-ninja narrowed his eyes and dashed forward, moving as fast as he could in a random zig-zag pattern. A clone appeared at almost every step, doing its best to trip him up. Kakashi dodged each one, though he took a couple glancing blows here and there. Now that he knew what to expect, he was handling the situation better. If he could engage Naruto directly, the teen would lose his concentration and be forced to fight one on one. At less than ten feet from his target, the copy-nin feinted like he was about to leap and immediately cancelled the action into a spinning round house kick that went right under the clones that had appeared in mid-air to counter his first attack.

The force of the blow would have knocked Naruto flying, had it connected. Kakashi was again surprised when a clone materialized in midair and caught his foot, as another clone appeared behind it facing away and bracing the first's back with its shoulders. Two more appeared behind the second, each with their hands pushing on its chest and shoulders to further reinforce their position. The momentum behind Kakashi's attack was completely absorbed by such an efficient block.

Kakashi's sharp mind immediately realized that Naruto had deliberately held back with the other clones, allowing the jounin to get close enough to bait him into a trap.

The first clone didn't release the jounin's foot, preventing him from recovering from his attack. Kakashi hit the ground in an undignified flop and immediately raised himself up on his hands to shove himself back upwards. His jaw dropped behind his mask as hands ripped up out of the ground around him to grab onto his arms and legs. There was a weighty impact on the copy-nin's back, then another and another. Kakashi lost count somewhere around fifteen as clones appeared from all directions and dog-piled onto him. He was totally immobilized at the bottom of a dark pile, with five or six hands sticking out of the earth to grab onto each arm and leg. This was not good. If Naruto had learned some sort of clone bomb jutsu, he was totally screwed.

Kakashi grimaced and forced chakra down into his right hand.

Naruto didn't blink or change expression when the clones in the dog-pile exploded with several flashing motions of electrical chakra. Kakashi took the opportunity to get out of the breach and used his left hand to stabilize the Chidori completely. He backed way a couple dozen feet, while making quick work of the kage bunshins surrounding him. When he saw a real opening this time, he broke through the line to rush at the kitsune. Any clone that appeared was instantly cut down with his lightning jutsu. The jounin had no intention of actually using the Chidori on Naruto, but he was definitely going to keep it active to cut through any bunshins.

A clone appeared directly in front of him and Kakashi held his arm straight out to impale it, lines of crackling energy trailing off it as he ran. A second clone materialized and the copy-nin instantly knew he'd made a mistake.

The second clone had appeared doing a handstand on his outstretched arm, gripping his wrist just behind the destructive chakra of the Chidori.

The kage bunshin swung its body downwards and maintained its grip the whole way. Its momentum forced Kakashi's arm to twist with it or risk a break. The jounin stumbled in his run and the clone completed its movement and braced its feet against the ground while doing on rolling throw. Kakashi's body was lifted clear off the ground and his own momentum combined with the clone's strength hurled him through the air dozens of feet in a scene that was oddly reminiscent of the hospital rooftop fight he'd interrupted years ago. The ground exploded underneath him as clone after clone tore up through the earth into the air to nail him with blow after blow. Even as he was fending them off with his right hand, the copy-nin was reaching up with his left to raise his forehead protector up. As he neared the ground, he held his chakra enhanced hand out to destroy the stream of clones appearing in front of him.

The jounin's Chidori enhanced arm plowed into the ground and tore a deep, long furrow through the earth. The soil gave way like tissue paper under the jutsu's power and it took several seconds for enough friction to build up to bring him to a halt. Kakashi allowed the Chidori to crackle out of existence as he whirled around and took a fighting stance, the Sharingan fully exposed and focused on Naruto.

The genin showed his first real sign of emotion by raising his eyebrow at the sight of the active Bloodline Limit.

"I don't think that's necessary, Hatake-san," Naruto calmly said. He relaxed his arms to his sides.

"…I'll admit you're too much for me without the Sharingan, Naruto, but I seriously doubt you can beat me with it open," Kakashi replied in a tense voice. He didn't relax from his stance, nor did he take his spinning red eye off the teen.

"But I'm not supposed to beat you, remember? I was only supposed to grab the bells, right?" Naruto said with a slightly amused half-smile. He raised his hand and displayed the dangling bells hanging from it. "I think somebody forgot his own test."

"He's got you there, Hatake," Ino chimed in from the sidelines. She was swinging between awe and fury at the prowess her fellow genin had displayed. Awe at how skilled he'd become and fury because this confirmed her suspicions that he'd been holding back during their fight a month ago. The fact that clones were a major weak point for her skills only rubbed salt in the wound. He could have beaten her easily if he'd thought to use this strange jutsu on her.

Kakashi flinched at the sight of the bells and glanced at his beltline to make sure they were gone. Well, shit… He really had forgotten all about the test during the fight. He looked back to the blonde teen and asked, "When did you grab them? During the dog-pile?"

"When you first teleported behind me. The second clone on your right took them when you couldn't move your head because of the kunais," Naruto replied. He tossed the bells through the air and they landed ground in front of Kakashi. "It took me two minutes to get them when you thought it might take me six or seven hours. I assume I pass then?"

"I…Yes, you pass," The Copy-ninja said as he relaxed out of his stance and slid his protector back down over his eye. He couldn't believe he had missed the teen pilfering the bells, especially so early in the match when it had still felt like a real test and not the full fight it had devolved into.

"I see…Hatake-san?" Naruto said in a suddenly cold voice. His incandescent eyes seemed to burn with an inner fury. "We need to talk."

Kakashi raised a silver eyebrow at the comment. He had learned at least one thing from the many, _many_ volumes of Icha Icha Paradise he had read over the years.

Nothing good _ever_ followed that sentence.

* * *

**Authors Notes:**

**General:** It's finally up. Sorry I overshot my expected day by over a week. Hope everyone enjoys Chapter 8.

Nothing too much of note this time around. Most of my rants are now confined to my LJ rather than taking up room here. Virtually all reviewers have respected my request to restrict their comments to the story rather than me personally and for that, thanks. As I said before, compliments and criticism are welcome, though please do both intelligently or, at the very least, politely. I doubt it'll become a problem, but better safe then sorry right?

As for Foxhound, it's starting to pick up a bit finally. I expected to be at this point four or five chapters ago, but for some reason I always wind up writing in new scenes that I'd never thought of before. Hmm, strange. I have three other Naruto fanfictions in the works right now, though only one is well thought out. I may post the first chapter to one of them in a month or so. Maybe. I don't want to lose focus on Foxhound before it's actually done.

Kiba's sister…Well, I ran a search on her and found out that she's one of those unnamed characters as far as anyone knows. I did however get a bit of info on her from a forum that's devoted to translating the guide book (said book looks almost useless from the pictures I saw, by the way.) According to the info there, her first name is Hana and she's a chuunin. (If I made a huge mistake, email me and let me know, k? A minor mistake, though, can be written off as artistic license, hehe.) The rest of it I inferred as best as I could. We never see Kiba's father (unless that is one FEMININE man shown during the Sound invasion. Wouldn't put it past Kishimoto) and since she's an Inuzuka and older, I figure she probably fights the same way as Kiba, only better. That scene was originally going to be the dogs picking up Naruto's unnatural scent and him just growling and walking off, but then I decided to make it into something else that was (hopefully) more entertaining.

Oh, and the reason the Kyuubi hates dogs will fully explained in the future, but lets just say it had a _bad_ relationship with their Lord.

And for people curious about how strong Naruto is, he's still not quite as powerful Kakashi (at least Kakashi using the Sharingan.) It's tricky to fully know someone's true power in this series (unlike, say DBZ) since so many things (skill, techniques, chakra, stamina, experience etc) are taken into consideration. Naruto's stamina/chakra is almost as high as Jiraiya's, but his skill/experience are only high-chuunin range (since he only has a few techniques he's really good at, as opposed to a range of techniques that a Sannin or Kakashi would have.) Overall, he's a few notches lower than Kakashi. That's my final word and I'm sticking to it, haha.

The Elements will be explained either sometime in the story or whenever I sit down and fully think it out. I may add it to the Databank on my blog.

And as one final note, I went back and edited all of my older chapters a few days ago. It was just a couple touchups, but the big thing I did was split up some of those enormous paragraphs (especially from the third and fourth chapter.) Hopefully it'll make it an easier read. I also finally got around to replacing 'chunin' with 'chuunin' for all the chapters. I've been meaning to do that for a month now. Anyways, hopefully the chapters will read a bit smoother now.

**Jutsu:** I got a few this time. I have a full list of all jutsu and related notes on my LJ for anyone who hates switching back and forth between chapters. Go to my profile/user info page and click memories. It's under the link that says Foxhound (how ironic, haha.)

**Storage Seal** (B Rank) A series of normal seals that alter a container of some sort, enabling it to contain a massive volume of objects. (Created by Jiraiya.)

The storage seal is a complicated series of seals that alter the physical laws of how much a container can contain. This is actually a _very_ complicated technique to use and pushes the boundaries of what human seals can pull of. Basically, it changes X into an unknown variable, where X equals the cubic volume of matter a container can hold. It also 'folds' the objects once they're inside, making them seem weightless and momentum less (actually it just shrinks the weight and momentum down to an unnoticeable level, roughly equivalent to a grain of sand.) To have the container hold something larger than itself, a second series of seals must be used on its opening so that it can stretch and shift to engulf whatever its target is. The seals draw the chakra in from the surrounding environment and its user to keep themselves active.

To make the container release its store, the user places their hand on the bag and channels a subtle amount of chakra into it. He/She then pictures the object in their head and say, "Release" or a similar command. The object is promptly regurgitated out of the container.

The storage seal can be used on almost any container (bag, scroll case, box, jar and lid, etc.) and there is no known time limit for how long the items can be contained, nor is there any known degradation to them resulting from their storage. Furthermore, objects seem to be fully protected as long as the container itself isn't damaged. If the container is damaged to the point where the seals break…watch out. Do the words 'explosive decompression' mean anything to you?

**Wind Cushion** (Unranked; seal complexity is roughly equal to B) A cushion of air that is strong enough to support several tons of matter and is generated by a series of standard seals. (Created by Uzumaki Naruto.)

The Wind Cushion is a jutsu created by Naruto solely for his personal comfort (and to go with the Wind theme of his room.) The seals 'harden' the air while making it slowly circulate at the same time. As a safety feature, the air is breathable (just in case someone rolls over and mashes half their face into it) and feels like normal air to someone breathing it. While the air itself is perfectly capable of holding a person up, Naruto usually straps a sheet around it to make it feel somewhat like a bed. When a person actually lies on the Cushion, the air alters and matches their body perfectly and provides a comfortable level of support (just enough to not feel weightless) while applying almost no pressure to the skin. Because the user doesn't get pins and needle from resting on it, they almost never shift while sleeping. The quality of sleep overall is thus greatly improved.

The one downside to the Wind Cushion is the difficulty in getting on and off it. Because there's almost no pressure feed back, it's almost impossible to brace against it to push away. Basically, the same trouble as getting off a water bed times thirty. Naruto altered the seals somewhat to take care of that problem when he made Tsunade's Cushion. A simple half-seal firms the bed up enough that the person can get enough traction to get off. A simple full seal alters the shape so it's like a slide (for exceptionally lazy people.)

Naruto's Wind Cushion runs off the energy from the power plant seal, while Tsunade's has to be recharged manually by a person once a week (it's a pretty efficient seal setup.)

**Ration Pills **(Unranked) A modification of soldier pills.

Nothing much to ration pills, except that they sacrifice most of their chakra replenishing properties for chemical energy. The standard mixture has about double the chemical energy and a third the chakra restoration ability. This recipe can be modified and altered somewhat. Naruto's has it at three times chemical energy (not necessarily how long the person can go without food) and a quarter chakra restoration. The chakra restoration is also more long term than the instant nature of soldier pills. Ration pills restore chakra over the course of several hours, which is less straining on the body but not so useful in a fight. It's a pretty even trade off over all.

**Summoning Contract: Carrion Birds **(B Level Contract) A summoning contract that can call forth a multitude of various carrion birds including ravens, crows, vultures, buzzards, and the condor (Boss Summon.)

This summoning contract was created centuries ago by an assassin order for assistance in spying and in disposing of bodies. After the order broke up, the contract was passed around to various clans and villages. Understandably, few were eager to make a contract with grisly animals like vultures, so it was passed off to others as quickly as possible. It finally came to a clan that joined the Hidden Ice when it first formed, where it was eventually traded to the Shimoyake clan. When Maruishi (the Hyougakage) took control of the village, he saw the potential of using unusual birds as messengers rather than the commonly expected carrier eagles. They may not be as fast, but it's hard to catch a buzzard riding a thermal over a mile in the air. Maruishi made minor contracts derived from the original to hand out to the Ice hunter-nins so they can report back from a long distance. He himself, along with every member of his clan (and Naruto) signed the full contract, which allows for multiple summons and of larger birds.

Depending on the chakra put into the move and the control of the user, a single bird of any type to a full murder can be summoned. The birds have a couple handy abilities. The buzzards and vultures have incredible senses of smell (though it's mostly geared towards bodily fluids, like blood) and sharp eyes that they can use to spy on things from a very long distance. The crows and ravens have a shadow-blend ability that lets them go invisible if they remain motionless in a shadow or at night (which crows and ravens can do for hours.) Their beaks and talons also contain venoms and infectious matter that will quickly turn to gangrene if the injury is left untreated for more than a day. Each bird has a psychic link to the other birds that lets them communicate from any distance. However, that's limited to birds of their species (ravens can only link with ravens; buzzards to buzzards, etc.) Some birds speak human language and some don't, with no real organization to which ones can and can't. They can all understand any human language fortunately, so usually several are summoned and the ones that can't speak are sent off to spy/carry a message while the ones that can remain behind with the summoner to keep him/her informed through the link.

Condor is the Boss Summon and has a full link to all the other birds and can speak human language. It has enhanced smell and sight like the vultures and also has a chakra attack that lets it spew out a beam-like spray of rotten gas and liquid. The gas is a powerful toxin and the liquid contains more infectious bacteria than there is known to man. If it hits a target with open wounds, then they will almost certainly die of blood poisoning and gangrene within a day or two, regardless of medical treatment. The beam doesn't have a huge range, but it is powerful enough to knock a man off his feet if the distance from the target is less than sixty feet (Condor can also bomb attack from above to increase its range.)

The birds' primary weakness is that none of them are fighters. A single blow will dispel almost any of them, except for the largest buzzards and Condor. Even they can't take more than two or three shots before they dematerialize. The birds also have an unpleasant habit of riding on their summoner's shoulders (Naruto usually stuffs his nose with shredded cloth to block the smell) and defecating wherever they please (although pranksters occasionally summon them solely for that last habit alone.) They are loyal, however, and will gladly obey any task their summoner sets down for them if it's within their ability. (Some think that latter part might be to show up the more sought after eagle and hawk summons.)

There are two requirements to having this contract: the summoner can't currently have or ever sign a contract with any eagle or hawk type bird and the summoner has to occasionally call all the birds out so they can feast on some dead animal (or ninja.)

**Shield and Sword **(Forbidden Jutsu) Naruto's personal version of Kage Bunshin that involves an extreme level of control over the clones in their creation. Nin-jutsu/Tai-jutsu. No seals used.

Since he lived in the Hidden Night, Naruto has occasionally practiced and developed his own personal spin on the kage bunshin jutsu. After the high levels of training he went through in the Ice, his high level of chakra control netted him the ability to create kage bunshins without using seals (though it took a lot of practice.) Over time, he also figured out how to generate them at any location within a spherical range of himself. As his skill developed, it resulted in the Shield and Sword.

Shield and Sword is a jutsu where the user generates a clone in any position within a radius of roughly eighty to a hundred feet. It should be noted that the radius means _any_ direction, including in the air or underground (it takes extra chakra to force a clone to displace earth, but after that the clone can dig through the ground on its own.) Naruto also developed the ability to add a certain level of momentum onto his clones, enabling them to be created in the middle of a move. They can't be created all the way in a move (like appearing with their fist planted in someone's face) but they can be created up to halfway through a move (like a punch already on course to a target.) It's very hard to adapt to this style of fighting and most opponents are caught totally off guard by the perfect synchronization of the kage bunshins. Naruto practiced heavily in the perfect timing in switching back and forth between using them as instant shields or as quick attacks.

The only downside to this technique is that summoning Kage Bunshins without hand seals makes them appear with a loud 'crack' rather than a light popping noise. He can minimize the noise to very low levels if he's dealing with less than five clones, but any more and the it's pretty noticeable, making it's use during spy missions pretty poor. The noise gets progressively worse in ratio to the amount of clones summoned. A hundred sounds like a nearby lightning strike while a thousand sounds like a bomb going off. This weak point restricts Shield and Sword mostly to open battle situations, though one noticeable exception is placing a clone underground. Earth and soil effectively muffles any sound a clone makes, so that is the sole stealth ability of the Shield and Sword.

Naruto only recently mastered this jutsu during his month of training in the Leaf. All of his Blood Clones can use this ability as well.

**Reviews:**

(Reviews removed)

To everyone else who reviewed, thank you a ton for the effort and the feedback. Sorry I can't get back to everyone. If you have a specific question you definitely want answered you can either leave a line in your review requesting that I respond or contact me via email or my LJ. Thanks again to everyone!

To everyone wondering about Kakashi's seals, patience. It'll likely be in next chapter or Chap 10. I'll explain it and a little background info on some other seals.

**Next Update:** I have no idea. From now on, no promises. It'll be up when it's done. Check my lj for updates on chapter progress. I don't expect it to take a long time, but who knows?


	9. But I neeeed those circuits Master!

Author: Kraken's Ghost

Email: On profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor am I making any money off this work. The only thing I own is the original material. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Summary: See first chapter.

Story so far: Naruto has several interesting encounters, including an unpleasant encounter with an Inuzuka and painful encounter with Iruka. He completes his house and takes Tsunade on a grand tour of the place. Later, he meets up with Jiraiya again and unseals a unit of demon chakra. Afterwards, Tsunade gives him the good news that he's been reinstated on a team…Team 7, to be exact. He passes Kakashi's bell test with a disturbingly powerful variant of the kage bunshin and afterwards says he wants to have a 'chat' with his former teacher.

**Chap. 9**

"Alright, I guess we can-" Kakashi began, but was cut off by Naruto.

"Not yet. I'd rather discuss this privately," The kitsune sharply replied with a subtle glance towards Ino that the jounin immediately picked up on.

"Okay," The Copy-ninja said with a nod. He looked towards his student and said, "Ino-chan, take the rest of the day off and meet back here regular time tomorrow."

Ino immediately hopped off the wooden post, though she hesitated to leave. Her pretty features wrinkled in a worried frown as she gave her sensei a questioning look.

"Don't worry about it, Yamanaka-san," Naruto spoke up, not having to turn and look at the girl to understand her reluctance. "Neither of us will be fighting again today…At least not physically."

The blonde girl narrowed her eyes at the kitsune for a long moment. Naruto may hold her interest but Kakashi had become a close friend over the past year. The other genin had proved that he could fight the copy-nin to a standstill, at the very least. The fight would be far too close to call if they actually got serious. And Kakashi couldn't bounce back from grievous injuries the way Naruto could. Ino couldn't beat the other teen alone, but her and Kakashi's tag-teaming would be lethal even to him. She was _not_ going to lose her sensei, even if the boy had some sort of grudge against the man.

As her eyes flickered to Kakashi, the jounin gave her a reassuring nod. Though she didn't show it, Ino felt a surge of relief. Kakashi knew his own limits well and didn't have an ego when it came to admitting there were some things he couldn't do. If he was signaling that he didn't need help, then he didn't need any.

"…Alright, I'll see you two tomorrow morning. Stay out of trouble…both of you," Ino said in a firm voice. At the muttered replies, she turned and slowly walked down the path and out of sight through the trees

A long minute of silence passed between former student and teacher, neither seeming eager to begin the conversation. The sky was bright again now that the spray from the water dragon jutsu had finally settled out of the air. The only sound was the occasional rustling of the trees at the edge of the clearing and the light trickling of the muddy water from the crater draining into some of the holes Naruto's clones left behind. It was a nice day out all things considered, though the sky could be purple for all the attention the two shinobi were giving their surroundings.

"So, that clone technique…Did you develop it yourself or did your _teacher_…give it to you?" Kakashi finally asked.

"I created it. Took me nine months to design and master it," Naruto replied in a neutral tone. His unnerving blue eyes narrowed as he asked, "And by teacher I assume you mean the Kyuubi. It had a hand in it, in a sense, but not as much as you'd think. And none of my teachers have ever _given_ me a technique. They showed it to me and I had to work my ass off to perfect each one. I even had to work to control the Toad summons."

"…I suppose that's true," Kakashi slowly said after a second's consideration. That _was_ a strong character point about Naruto. The jounin decided to change the subject when he said, "Still, your use of the kage bunshin is incredible. Using no seals, creating them in varying positions, and the switching between defense and attack were the work of a genius. You're far better than I gave you credit for, Naruto."

"Genius…Don't insult me," Naruto said with a small sneer. At the Copy-ninjas surprised look he elaborated, "Like I'd want to be associated with _that_ brand of ninja. Genius shinobi are overrated. They fail just as many times and make just as many mistakes as normal ninja. Maybe even more so considering how often they overestimate themselves and underestimate their opponents. You know in the time period between when we became genin and he defected, I won considerably more battles than Sasuke? Being a genius proves nothing. The mind is a tool, same as every other part of a warrior. Just because it's honed more in some people than others doesn't mean it's put to better use. Look at Lee. He made the number one rookie of his year, the great prodigy Hyuuga Neji, look like a pussy during the chuunin exams. Genius? Don't make me laugh."

Behind his mask, Kakashi's jaw dropped. Well, it seemed Naruto had grown up some. This was completely unlike the loud-mouthed fool he had known during the days of the original Team 7. When the hell had he become so damn perceptive?

"I see the Kyuubi taught you more than jutsu," The Copy-ninja said in a strange voice.

Naruto gave the man such a dark look of fury that Kakashi actually blanched a little. He had _never_ seen the teen's face twisted by a look of rage before and it wasn't something he ever wanted to see again. Strange how he had used to think less of Naruto for being a goofy, grinning idiot during the original Team 7, but now that he saw the furious, sharp-witted bo-…young _man_ that he'd become, the copy-nin found himself wishing the old Naruto would come back.

"So that's how you see me? My one redeeming attribute was a fucking demon bound inside my soul?" Naruto literally growled. His pupils elongated for a moment before he restrained his darker urges enough to sarcastically shout, "Uzumaki Naruto! Idiot extraordinaire! He's a waste of time, but don't worry. He's taking care of that nasty little fox problem we've been having lately. He's a pretty pathetic ninja, but at least he can point that demon in the right direction! Don't bother teaching him anything important…Just make sure he stays alive long enough to let that fox out on our enemies. Is that about right, Hatake?"

The baleful way Naruto enunciated Kakashi's surname was completely unlike the teasing, affectionate manner Ino used. The jounin hastily replied, "That's not it at all Naruto."

"Then what is it?" The kitsune immediately retorted. His began a slow pace from side to side, never once taking his eyes off his former sensei. "If I recall correctly, I asked you to train me after the chuunin preliminaries. You said 'no' and went off to train the prodigy instead. Come to think of it, you never really taught me anything of use except tree walking and 'One Thousand Years of Pain.' Sasuke though…he got that, an entire tai-jutsu style you stole from someone else, dedicated one-on-one training, and your personal assassination technique. It's rather obvious how you thought of me compared to him."

"Naruto, that was to prepare him for Gaara!" Kakashi protested. "You saw how powerful that bastard was when he decimated Lee! Not even Sasuke could beat him without enough training."

"You just don't fucking get it, do you? And they call you a genius," Naruto replied in a derisive voice. At the jounin's obvious confusion, he spelled it out, "I didn't care that you trained Sasuke. What bothered me was that you didn't take me along with you and give me the same or at least equivalent training."

"Naruto…I should have, but I couldn't. I wouldn't have had the time to get Sasuke ready for Gaara and train you at the same time," Kakashi replied, trying got explain his reasons.

"And we all saw how effective your training was. I forget…Who was the one that beat Gaara?" Naruto replied in a sarcastic voice.

"Sasuke landed several critical blows-" The Copy-ninja began.

"Sasuke didn't even wind him. Not a single one of his attacks left any lasting damage. Sasuke was beaten before Gaara transformed both arms," The half-demon snapped. "Who. Beat. Gaara?"

"…You did," Kakashi admitted in a defeated tone. The half-demon gave a small, vicious smile at the admittance.

"So, even ignoring the fact that your training wasn't enough anyways, you still didn't take me with you. Hatake, did you really spend every minute of every day looking over Sasuke's shoulder and watching his every move? Of course not. All Sasuke would have to do is record you with the Sharingan and then practice the new jutsu, be it the Chidori or Lee's tai-jutsu. That would've left you plenty of time to show me some new tricks," Naruto coldly stated. "You had to have known that, yet you still chose to foist me off onto someone else…Although perhaps I should thank you. Because of your favoritism, I stumbled across Jiraiya and I've grown far more under him than anyone ever could under you."

Kakashi gritted his teeth. The kitsune's words stung with truth, though he was twisting actual events to some degree in his favor…Or was he? From Naruto's point of view, this outlook was probably perfectly justified.

"Naruto, I'll admit I made some mistakes regarding you and Sasuke, but as you yourself said, it turned out for the best. For what it's worth, I'm sorry," The jounin stated in a controlled voice.

To his surprise, the blonde teen threw his head back and roared in laughter. The copy-nin was pretty sure the kitsune wasn't laughing _with_ him.

"You? Sorry?" Naruto said incredulously. "Saying you're sorry at this point is like throwing a single bucket of water on a building that's already burned down."

Kakashi's eye twitched. Good analogy, dammit.

"Besides," The kitsune continued, "You're not even apologizing for the right reasons."

"And how would you know that?" The Copy-ninja replied, a hint of anger coming into his voice.

Naruto fixed Kakashi with a dead serious stare and calmly said, "Hatake, you aren't sorry you ignored me in favor of Sasuke; you're sorry you wasted your time on a traitor. Tell me honestly, would you ever once think of apologizing to me if Sasuke had stayed in the village and remained your loyal student? Would you even _notice_ me or Sakura if you still had your precious Uchiha prodigy as your star pupil? Would you spend any time training the demon-possessed freak or the perfect chakra-control wimp if you still had the Sharingan endowed genius to focus on? Would you bother to train Ino if you still had the tragic little Uchiha to show off to everyone? It's convenient that you changed your tune only _after_ Sasuke defected."

Kakashi just stared at Naruto. He opened his mouth to speak, realized he couldn't think of a thing to say, and closed it again. What the hell could he say? 'No, you're wrong'? Naruto was…Naruto was dead right. He had just picked apart the reason for his actions over the last two and a half years, from brooding in guilt to taking Ino on as his apprentice. He hadn't been apologizing for ignoring Naruto in favor of Sasuke; he had been sorry for himself that he had wasted all that valuable time on a ninja that turned traitor. It was disturbing that this teen could be so perceptive towards his intentions. Unlike Ino, Naruto didn't have a Bloodline Limit to peek into the jounin's head. If this was the result of training under Jiraiya (and possibly the Kyuubi), then no wonder Naruto hadn't hesitated or looked back when the Sannin offered to take him away from Konoha. The teen was a powerful ninja and very intelligent, regardless of his aversion to the label 'Genius.' Staring at him, Kakashi could only grimace when he realized that not only did he not have a thing to do with Naruto's growth, but it was his neglect that had spawned it.

Tsunade was right. He'd repeated Sandaime's mistake and invested in the wrong ninja. And _that_ was what he was sorry for. Not that he favored Sasuke over Naruto, but that he'd trained a traitor rather than the ninja who remained loyal.

"Well, I never tried to show him off," Kakashi weakly said, trying humor to lighten the situation.

"What do you call showing up late for the Chuunin finals with a dramatic teleport in the middle of the_ fucking arena_ in front of _a thousand _people from all over the _entire continent_?" Naruto replied in an icy voice that carried the force of a full yell.

The Copy-ninja hid a wince. The genin was _not_ pulling any punches, was he? Though he had been incredibly proud at the time, looking back even he found himself annoying. How Gai and the genins had tolerated his bragging and attitude, he had no idea.

"As I was saying, you deliberately ignored me because you felt I wasn't worth the effort to train. Then you got pissed off when I exceeded your star pupil," Naruto said as he ticked off a point on his fingers. His pacing had relaxed into a lazy prowl rather than the barely repressed violence he'd been radiating minutes ago. The teen gave Kakashi a sharp look and said, "Or did you think Jiraiya wouldn't tell me that you criticized him for teaching me the Rasengan?"

Kakashi's eye widened in shock. No wonder he was pissed off. He hastened to reassure his former student as he said, "Naruto, it's not that! I just felt you weren't ready for that jutsu yet and that the temptation to misus-"

"**Shut up.**"

The rumbling, brassy voice that came from the blonde's mouth was _not _Naruto's. It was…_dark_. It was _old_.

"One, considering the Yondaime never felt you should learn the Rasengan, you have _no_ place to preach about its use," Naruto spoke in a normal voice while holding up a single finger. His tone was neutral, but there was the hint of a cold fury unlike anything Kakashi had ever experienced before. The teen raised another finger and said, "And two, considering Sasuke tried to murder me in cold blood with the Chidori, your ability to judge who should be trusted with high class jutsu is flawed to the point of being retarded _and_ ignorant. It was not and never will be your place to decide what skills I should and should not be entrusted with. You gave that right up when you gave me to another teacher.

"Now that we've established that you're a hideous judge of character, I can get to the point: you got upset when I learned a better jutsu than Sasuke. You did the same thing with Gai and Lee. You were so sure Sasuke was such a powerful shinobi, then 'out of nowhere' another teacher comes along and reveals a far stronger student. I don't know if you were using Sasuke to measure yourself up to Gai and Jiraiya or what the hell your problem was and, honestly, I don't care."

Naruto lightly flexed his right hand and slowly popped his knuckles as he briefly paused. Though he hated what he was hearing, Kakashi couldn't think of anything to say to fill in the conversation gap.

"If you knew both the Rasengan and the Chidori, which would you have taught to Sasuke?" The kitsune asked.

"The Chidori," Kakashi answered firmly. It was the similarities between Sasuke and himself that had inspired him to teach the boy that move.

"And after I learned the Rasengan?" Naruto asked, seemingly accepting the statement.

"…I would have taught it to him," The Copy-ninja grudgingly answered.

"Yet you didn't teach me the Chidori…Or at least you didn't try very hard," The teen said almost casually. It was the truth, but by now Kakashi was getting used to these low blows to his pride. Well, they _felt_ like low blows. In all honesty, this was pretty justified.

"Here's my final question, Hatake," Naruto said as he stopped his pace and crossed his arms over his chest. "If at some point, you had been able to copy the Rasengan from me and teach it to Sasuke, would you have?"

"That's not fair and you know it!" Kakashi yelled at the teen, finally losing his cool. It was bad enough that other elite ninjas gave him dark looks when he sometimes copied techniques. He didn't need some kid blatantly accusing him of jutsu theft too.

"Is it?" Naruto said in a cold, silky voice that stopped the copy-nin's protest in his tracks. "Answer the question, Hatake: Even though it was the Fourth's prize technique, even though it was entrusted to me by a Sannin, if you had the ability to stea-…I'm sorry, _copy _the Rasengan when Sasuke couldn't and give it to him, would you do it? Knowing that I didn't have a Bloodline Limit, that I wasn't a genius, that skills and jutsu came hard to me and that I had to work my ass off for them, that it was the most prized thing I had to my name, would you take the Rasengan and give it to Sasuke?"

"What makes you think I would do such a thing?" Kakashi replied, evading the question. He knew the answer, he just didn't want to say it out loud. When put into a perspective like this, it made him ill to think of someone doing such a thing. Was this how the others saw it?

Naruto narrowed his eyes and said one word.

"Lee."

The jounin flinched, but covered it up almost immediately and said, "Sasuke had already copied Lee-kun's tai-jutsu. All he needed was a month to train to get his body adapted to it. I already told you and the others that at the chuunin finals."

"You did say that and that excuse is the same thing now as it was then: bullshit," Naruto snapped. He narrowed his strange eyes at the jounin and said, "Your arrogance is disgusting, Hatake. Do you _really_ think everyone else is so stupid? Shikamaru and Gai probably figured it out the minute you shot your mouth off. Why Gai didn't take your fucking head off, I have no idea. I suppose that speaks volumes of his character. If you had the audacity to do that to my student, I would have killed you."

"And just what do you think I did?" Kakashi asked with a feeling of dread.

"Sasuke copied a move from Lee. One. As in singular. One, not two, not three, not a dozen, he copied one move…Not an _entire fucking fighting style_!" The kitsune roared. Kakashi slid into a light stance as he felt killing intent radiating from the blonde. The teen gritted his teeth and forced his rage back down. Now was not the time to get violent. The jounin relaxed when he sensed the other shinobi regaining control of himself.

"I was there Hatake," Naruto started again. His voice was tense and angry, but at least it was restrained now. "Not only did Sasuke only copy a single move, he wasn't even able to copy the entire thing. Why else would he create the Shi-Shi Rendan? Lee wasn't able to complete his attack on Sasuke, so he wasn't able to copy the entire thing. Exactly _how_ do you figure that copying an incomplete move could be taken as an entire tai-jutsu style? Is every non-genius person you meet _that_ stupid in your eyes? It's a wonder people even talk to you, if that's how you think about them."

Kakashi didn't answer, a deep feeling of dread welling up in him.

"There's only one logical explanation for Sasuke having Lee's tai-jutsu: you," Naruto continued and casually pointed a finger at the copy-nin. The jounin broke eye contact when he realized the genin had figured it out. "Sasuke didn't copy all of Lee's tai-jutsu, but _you_ did. You uncovered the Sharingan when Lee was opening the Gates and left it open the whole time he was kicking Gaara around. Gai didn't say anything about you leaving your Sharingan open, probably because he thought you'd never do something so dishonorable, so at the time I didn't think anything of it. But it now makes sense. You copied Lee's tai-jutsu and then let Sasuke copy it from you. You totally ripped off someone else's student to advance your own. That's why I think you would have taken the Rasengan from me and given it to Sasuke, had it been within your power.

"Hell, if you could you'd probably copy it right now and give it to your new star pupil. You knew, you _knew_ that tai-jutsu was all Lee had. That was it. Even _I_ had more talent in nin-jutsu and gen-jutsu than him. That kid had nothing and he was desperate to prove himself to anyone who'd bother to pay him a second's attention. Lee worked his ass off to master tai-jutsu, hell to find _anything_ he was good at period. He had nothing, he finally found something precious that was his alone, and you stole it from him. You took the only thing of value from someone who had nothing else and gave it to someone who had everything. Did Sasuke even appreciate what you had done? Of course not. In his mind he probably felt it was his god given right to take it and that it should have belonged to him in the first place. You know, you said once that Sasuke was the same type as you. I agree. The two of you are garbage. Worthless, human garbage. There was a reason Yondaime never trusted his technique to you."

Kakashi wanted to get furious. He wanted to get angry and cut this brat down to size. The sheer audacity of a genin seriously berating a jounin was unheard of. He was shocked that _Naruto_ of all people would say such things to him. The boy had whined and complained before about Sasuke getting more attention, but it had just been hot air for the most part. These words _cut_ and no matter how hard he tried, the Copy-ninja couldn't get angry. Naruto was right. He'd acted despicably when it came to the pedestal he'd placed Sasuke on. It wasn't the same awe the rest of the village held him in, but he had held the Uchiha in extremely high regard. Far more so than Naruto whom, though he had acknowledged as strong, had always been inferior in his eyes compare to Sasuke.

That last statement really hurt. He always _had_ wondered why his sensei never taught him so much as the first level of the Rasengan. He'd tried to convince himself at first that there were any number of reasons why the Fourth never had time to teach him that jutsu, be it distraction by Hokage duties, to dealing with Obito's death, or by being occupied with the wars. Over time though, Kakashi had come to realize that the Yondaime hadn't _forgotten_ to teach him Rasengan; he simply never intended for him to learn it. Period. The jounin had asked his sensei only once to teach him the move. The blonde man had given him a hard, penetrating look for several moments and replied with a simple 'no.'

Kakashi had never worked up the courage to ask him again. He'd never even managed to ask why the Hokage had refused. The question had bothered him off and on for years. Naruto's view probably wasn't the truth, but it did raise some upsetting thoughts. _Why_ did the Yondaime refuse to teach him the Rasengan?

"I…What do you want from me Naruto? I can't change the past," The jounin finally said in a resigned tone. "The only thing I can do is apologize."

"Fuck you and fuck your apology," The teen casually replied as he resumed his lazy pacing. "Again, you're only sorry about how things turned out. Had Sasuke remained loyal, I would still be shafted in his favor. And it kills me, it really does. Even though he hasn't done anything of value for the Leaf, you'd still pick him over me."

"Well, to be brutally honest Naruto, Sasuke _was _a more valuable ninja than you," Kakashi pointed out. He immediately regretted his words when the kitsune gave him a stare with blood-red eyes. Shit, he wasn't going to like this. He had a response for _that_ point too.

"Let's review what happened between academy graduation day and the day he defected…I beat Mizuki. Haku beat Sasuke. I beat Haku. We both lost to Orochimaru and I won't count me killing one of his snake summons. Sasuke beat a Sound-nin, whatever his name was. Sasuke then beat some other nobody in the preliminaries. I beat Kiba. I beat Neji, which you never even bothered to comment on, by the way. Gaara beat Sasuke. I beat Gaara's full power. Itachi _dominated_ Sasuke. I beat Kabuto. And finally, Sasuke managed to beat me. Let's tally that all up: I beat a chuunin level traitor when I wasn't even a genin, a renegade Hunter-nin, a powerful genin, an ingenious prodigy, a fucking _demon-vessel_, and a traitor as strong as _you_. That's a total of six wins, three of which were against powerful enemies of the Leaf, and two losses. Sasuke beat two no-names and the dead-last. Three wins, none of which meant shit, and four losses. Exactly _how_ do you figure he was a more valuable ninja than me? His _grades_?"

Naruto's voice would make a glacier seem warm by comparison. Kakashi resisted the urge to make a grimace, regardless that the kitsune wouldn't see it. Yet another good point. When one looked at the big picture, Sasuke held less value for the Leaf than Naruto did. Funny how no one, including himself, had noticed that until _after_ the Uchiha defected.

"Just on paper…" The jounin muttered, echoing his words from a month ago. He stared at the ground for several long moments. Naruto had apparently run out of things to berate him for, thankfully. Despite his harsh attitude, the teen was telling the truth. Kakashi had done all those things and he'd been a stuck-up prick about it too. Granted, he was a _subtle_ prick, but that didn't change his smug attitude or the barbs he'd made towards the others at the time. He could only be grateful everyone blew it off. Otherwise, nobody would likely so much as hold a conversation with him.

"Bah…and you wonder why I don't want to be associated with geniuses. The whole lot of you are-"

"You were right."

"Pardon?" Naruto asked while raising a blonde eyebrow.

"You were right," Kakashi said louder. He lifted his head and met the genin's eyes with his own level stare. "I don't have any excuses. I made mista-…I made colossal fuck ups regarding you and Sasuke. Yes, you beat Gaara when Sasuke didn't and _couldn't_. Yes, I would have taught him the Rasengan, just so my prize student could stay ahead of everyone else. Yes, I stole Lee-kun's tai-jutsu _and_ I told everyone else that Sasuke had already taken it. Yes, I would have…I would have stolen the Rasengan from you and given it to him. Yes, you were the more valuable ninja. I admit all that Naruto and I won't try to get out of it. And whether or not you accept it, I'm still apologizing for my actions."

Naruto paused in his pace and gave the copy-nin a sidelong glance.

"It's about time you got your head out of your ass, Hatake, but you're still dumping water on a long gone building," He said. Though his words were harsh, there was far less venom in his voice. "You can apologize as much as you want, but you're not going to rebuild the building no matter how many buckets you upend on it."

"So what happens now?" Kakashi asked, honestly curious at what the teen would say.

"…Tsunade-nee-chan placed me on this team and as her subordinate I don't have any choice in the matter. That doesn't mean I won't make your life a living hell if I feel like it. I don't care about rules or chain of command or punishment and I've already proven we're about even in a fight, so don't think I'll hold back when it come to torturing you. And believe me, Hatake, _nobody_ knows Hell like I do," Naruto said as he resumed his light pacing. He casually continued, "Using my example from earlier, as long as the building remains destroyed, you and I have no relationship, working or otherwise. Normally, I'd be perfectly content to leave it like that considering the bullshit I had to put up with from you. However, I've thought about this a lot the past year and I decided that there's at least one reason why I should give fixing things between us a shot. To that end, I'll offer you a deal."

"What reason are you talking about?" The jounin asked curiously. Whatever it was, it had to be big if it was more important than all the stuff Naruto had verbally flayed him over.

"You care about me," The kitsune calmly replied. "You may have favored Sasuke over me, but you still watched out for me sometimes. You bandaged my injuries, you occasionally stopped by to make sure I was eating alright, and you've saved my life a couple of times. Despite your attitude in other areas, that shows to me that you aren't a _total_ ass and a waste of time like most of the other geniuses I know."

"I see. What's the bargain?" Kakashi asked. He knew damn well that Naruto of all people could make life miserable for him if he wanted to and he'd gladly take the route that avoided a scenario like that.

"Lee. I want Rock Lee. On this team. Permanently," Naruto said in a perfectly serious tone. Not given the shocked Copy-ninja a chance to respond, he continued, "I'll give you a few days to win Gai over, but after that I'll make your life such a nightmare you'll wish my clones had beaten your skull in and finished you off. I'll continue to torment you with every trick my prankster and demonic nature can come up with until you get Lee on this team. When you do that, I'll consider it a first step towards rebuilding something between us and will quit the torture. Until then, you're worth little more than dirt to me."

"…Why Lee? Why him and not Neji or one of the other ninjas from your year?" Kakashi asked, though his mind was more focused on the titanic (and likely impossible) task of getting Maito Gai to surrender his prized student to his 'Eternal Rival.'

"I have my reasons and they aren't your concern. He's a valuable fighter and worth his weight in platinum, so there shouldn't be any problems on your part from a jounin-sensei's perceptive," Naruto calmly replied. His face was impassive and gave no hint to his motives.

"Why should I be the one to get Lee?" The jounin asked, trying a different approach that might get the teen to reveal something.

"You owe Lee ten times what you owe me," The kitsune replied in a steady voice. "If I got shafted by your favoritism, then Lee was totally gangbanged. I'll bet you never said a word of apology to him or Gai for your actions. Of course not. That would mean taking responsibility for your actions by admitting you had done something wrong and _nobody_ thinks a genius is capable of royally fucking up, least of all the genius himself. You owe Lee and you need to pay him back for what you've done. Getting him on the same team as me will be a major start."

"With you? What are you talking about?" Kakashi questioned. Despite his brilliant mind, he had no idea what the genin meant.

"That's none of your business, Hatake. Now, do we have a deal?" Naruto casually replied.

"…Do you have _any_ idea how hard it'll be to convince Gai to transfer Lee to my team _permanently_?" Kakashi demanded. Just the idea of bringing the subject up with his rival was unsettling.

"Yes, I do," Naruto answered with a wicked grin that would have made the Kyuubi proud. The Copy-ninja felt a slight shiver go up his spine at the sight. "Consider it divine retribution. Actions speak louder than words and doing this will be worth more than a hundred thousand apologies in my eyes. Anyone can shoot their mouth off till they're hoarse, but I wonder if you'll do more than that. Perhaps you'll go through with it; perhaps not. Depending on which way you choose to go, your true character will be revealed and I can decide whether you're worth any effort or not.."

"And if Gai flat out refuses?" The jounin asked with a bit of dread.

"Then you didn't try hard enough. Nothing is impossible if you're willing to make the right sacrifices and work hard enough for it. Maybe this'll be a lesson for a genius like you. Experience what it's like to actually _work _for something and maybe you won't look down on others so much," The kitsune answered in a light tone. His voice turned serious as he asked, "One last time: do we have a deal?"

"…I'll do the best I can, though I can't make any promises," Kakashi answered after several moments of thought. Who knows? Maybe Gai would be merciful.

Yeah…_right_.

"You have three days starting now. I'll leave you alone until then, but after that it's open season until Lee officially and permanently joins Team 7. Heehee, I can't wait," Naruto said, though the last sentence was mostly to himself. A little cold sweat appeared on Kakashi's brow at the positively _evil_ and borderline insane look on the genin's face at the prospect of tormenting him. The kitsune began to think aloud to himself, "I wonder what prank will create the most incentive to win Gai over? Maybe the one I used on the Earth daimyo…No, he went nuts afterwards. No good. What about…Nah, the rashes would never go away…Perhaps _that_ one. It'll all wash off…eventually…._maybe_. If we have a monsoon, hehe. Hmm, decisions, decisions…"

Kakashi wasn't sure whether to shiver or sweat-drop at the teen's muttering. He settled for saying, "Well, I'll need to focus all my energy on convincing Gai, so team training is cancelled for the next three days. I'll let Ino know we're off for tomorrow on my way to Gai and Lee's place. I guess it wouldn't hurt to meet here at the end of the three days. Hopefully I'll have some good news."

Naruto glanced up and shrugged.

"If I've learned anything from Team 7 it's not to rely on you to pull through for me. It's always a toss up where you're concerned, so I'm not getting my hopes up," The genin replied in a light tone. Without so much as a 'later', he wandered off down the path, retracing Ino's earlier route. He was still wondering aloud at his potential pranks as he disappeared through the trees.

Kakashi watched him go, then let out a loud sigh when the teen was out of earshot. That had been an unpleasant experience. He knew Naruto was likely to hold a grudge, but this was far worse than he'd expected.

'Well, what did you expect to happen after the shit you pulled? He'd just come back, give a fox-grin and act like nothing had ever happened? Maybe he would've been nice enough to bring you a new, unreleased edition of Icha Icha,' The jounin sarcastically thought to himself. Right…Like that would ever happen in the real world.

The Copy-ninja stretched his back and winced a little at some of the bruises that had formed from the clones' attacks during the test. Naruto had improved so much he was barely recognizable from a fighting point of view. Even with the Sharingan, Kakashi wasn't entirely sure he could beat the teen. Many of his techniques couldn't be copied and his unnaturally high stamina would have only increased in the two and a half years he'd been gone. Worse, he was totally unpredictable in his strategies and attacks. Before, he made enough foolish mistakes that his chaotic nature wasn't a threat, but now there was no telling what his next move would be except that it would be dangerous. That made him a far more deadly opponent than Sasuke or Ino ever could be. Shikamaru would undoubtedly back him on that. The hardest opponent to beat in a strategy game was the one who seemed to make no sense in their movements, yet had a method to their madness.

'So why are you making such an effort to appease him?' The jounin asked himself.

Well, for one he was stuck with the kitsune. If Tsunade wouldn't listen to Naruto of all people, then it was doubtful she'd listen to Kakashi if he made a transfer request. She'd probably smirk at him and reply that it was his just desserts. Naruto held no fear of authority; never had really. He would deliberately fail a mission, pull a prank on a higher ranking ninja, or pick a fight with anyone and not care what kind of punishment he received. If he said he'd make Kakashi's life hell, then he meant it. No amount of ordering, threatening, or violence would change that. And the jounin had never been much of a prankster, so he doubted he could keep up with the teen in that regard. No, it would be best to get Lee on his team as soon as possible. There'd be less problems that way.

And he was curious. This wasn't the Naruto he had known. This Naruto had been seasoned under the tutelage of a Sannin and the greatest of the youma, so much so that he was almost as good as Kakashi himself. With the Rasengan on his side, a fight between them would be far too close to call. He was everything a teacher could want in a student: sharp-witted, creative, and possessing power in spades. He was both familiar and new, making him an interesting combination. Kakashi knew he'd regret it if he didn't take the opportunity to get to know this young man, pride be damned.

Well…There was that, and the fact that what the kitsune had said was true: out of the blue he had royally screwed over Lee. The kid had never been anything but polite and friendly towards him, if a little weird at times, and Kakashi had repaid that respect with an appallingly dishonorable act of theft. No wonder Naruto was disgusted with him.

Well, he could stand around here wasting time or he could get off his ass and try to fix things. He didn't have much experience when it came to groveling, but hopefully he was smart enough to wing it convincingly.

He could only pray, though, that Gai wouldn't just rip his head off immediately for daring to even suggest taking Lee from him.

* * *

Three days passed quickly for Naruto. As there were no team meetings, he'd mostly spent the time catching up with Jiraiya, usually while lounging about in his kitchen or on the deck. Though he was understandably reluctant to do so, the kitsune had allowed the old pervert to crash on one of the couches in his living room while he was in town (the sennin hadn't been kidding when he said he was totally out of cash. Working on rebuilding his spy network had cost him almost everything.) Jiraiya had been well behaved so far, but Naruto was just waiting for the moment when he stumbled across a stash of porno's hidden somewhere in his house. Still, the hermit was a sharp witted person to have a conversation with and it was good to have someone to bounce jutsu ideas off of. 

Naruto had been curious about the failure in the spy network and what the Sannin had done to rebuild it. The Toad-hermit hadn't told him much, mostly because he himself hadn't found much info of use. But Jiraiya wasn't a sennin for nothing and it was only a matter of time before he rebuilt his network. It would be a pain in the ass, but he would pull it off. Naruto hadn't been able to offer any real assistance, but he'd made his sensei promise to call on him if he needed him to try and find an old jutsu in the Kyuubi's memories or if he simply needed back-up for a fight.

Hell, it'd likely be so much fun, he wouldn't hold any favors against the pervert.

The rest of the time they spent exchanging stories from the past year and with Naruto explaining in detail all the changes the fusion had wrought on him. Jiraiya was especially interested in the terror effect, as Orochimaru had mastered a similar ability using raw killing intent. Like Tsunade, he ordered the teen to use it on him and reacted to it much the same as his old teammate had. The Toad-hermit was more stubborn about it though and had Naruto use it on him off and on for several days till he was sure he had a solid defense against the ability (which was not an easy task by any means.) Jiraiya figured that if he could shrug off the brutal effects of the Kyuubi's terror, then Orochimaru's killing intent wouldn't faze him in the least.

The ero-sennin was also interested in Naruto's extreme level of regeneration. The kitsune had demonstrated it with a steak knife and Jiraiya watched every torn piece of flesh mend like a hawk. He had obviously seen Naruto's healing factor first hand in the time they'd traveled together, but never at such a rapid speed. The half-demon had barely finished his grimace of pain by the time his skin was almost healed. The Sannin was already redesigning his whole line of thought when it came to Naruto's fighting style. Though the teen didn't truly need him as a full time trainer anymore, like the Yondaime, he would still run his abilities and new jutsu by Jiraiya to have a trusted and more experienced opinion on them. Besides, the old pervert made a hell of a training partner, though they were so similar it was often hard to fight each other to more than a draw.

Naruto told Jiraiya every detail about the training exercises he had undergone with Shimoyake Maruishi, the Hyougakage. The Sannin was a bit annoyed at someone else training his prized pupil, but he ignored it in favor of his curiosity. Unlike Tsunade, the One-Legged Mountain Climbing exercise greatly interested him and he was tempted to take a brief training trip to the nearest mountains to have Naruto demonstrate it to him. The kitsune had dryly replied 'over _your_ dead body', so that idea kind of fell out. Still, that and the other training exercises were duly recorded in the Toad-hermit's sharp mind for later use.

Between the talks and sparring with his old sensei, Naruto had been pleasantly distracted enough that the arrival of the third day came as a bit of a surprise. He decided to go a little early to the training field, just to have a little peace and quiet before the day started. He left Jiraiya behind at his house (after numerous death threats and extracting an oath on the Sannin's mother's grave that _nothing_ pornographic would go on while he was gone) and made his way to the meeting place.

Ino found him there an hour later in the oddest position she'd ever seen (and this was from someone who used to deal with Chouji overeating and passing out in bizarre places on an almost daily basis.)

When the blonde girl walked down the dusty path into the middle of the training field, she immediately sensed Naruto's presence. When she looked towards the spot his thoughts were radiating from, all she could see was a strange black, orange, and cream colored object stuck to the side of a tree. As she walked closer, part of the object rustled and shifted a bit, making black ripples in the air around it. It looked like some sort of optical illusion and was beginning to strain her eyes when the early morning sun rose over the canopy of the eastern trees. As the bright light slowly crawled down the face of the tree trunk and reached the object, the black distortions suddenly became three-dimensional and recognizable objects resting on an equally recognizable person.

A crow turned from its perch on Naruto's back to give Ino a beady eyed stare and a derisive caw. Several other ravens and crows made similar noises at her. The genin had the feeling she was the butt of a nasty joke the birds were exchanging back and forth. As weird as the birds were, it was Naruto who truly got her attention. The other genin was sitting in a squat on the side of the tree trunk, casually writing on a piece of paper he had pressed to the bark between his legs. The kitsune was seemingly perfectly relaxed with resting in a position that defied the laws of physics. Apparently tree-climbing wasn't the slightest challenge for him if he could stick at a 90 degree angle on the trunk with a bunch of weird birds roosting on him.

"Err…Uzumaki, what're yo-"

"All done. Tengu-kun!" Naruto suddenly called out into the trees around him. As he folded the paper up, Ino's vision caught a black distortion moving away from the branches of a nearby pine. As it crossed the barrier between shadow and sunlight, it shifted into the largest raven the blonde girl had ever seen. Of course, she hardly made a habit of staring at weird black birds, but she was sure that any bird with a wingspan as wide as she was tall counted as pretty damn big.

Naruto finished folding the paper and performed a series of hand-seals over it. It glowed a greenish color for a second as the kitsune said, "Tobias Tinkerlot", then shifted to a forbidding looking red-orange color. Several odd designs that Ino couldn't make out appeared on the paper and it took on the appearance of an envelope with a large loop of string hanging from one end.

"Take this to Tinker-boss in the Hidden Night, will you Tengu-kun?" Naruto asked as he stood up (still sticking to the tree) and held the letter out. The large raven swooped by and smoothly snatched the envelope by the string loop with it's black talons.

"As you wish, Naruto-sama," The bird replied just before it flew out of earshot. It rose up over the forest canopy and quickly disappeared over the trees.

Naruto watched it for a moment and muttered to himself, "Maybe I should check up on Gaara too."

"Uzumaki!" Ino yelled up at him. The kitsune glanced down at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Do you always make a habit of addressing strangers so informally?" Naruto asked with an amused smirk. He of all people certainly didn't care about etiquette, but it was still an odd tendency.

"Of course. You'd be surprised how much it embarrasses your parents when you're young and addressing their friends like that. I guess the habit stuck," Ino replied with a smug half-smile.

"Huh. Wouldn't know," The kitsune said with a casual shrug.

The blonde girl on the ground took a second to make the connection and almost winced when she did. Naruto was one of the Kyuubi orphans and one that had never even been adopted by a foster family. She wasn't very surprised now that she knew he was the Kyuubi-vessel. Only someone who was insane or had a heart of gold would willingly take a possessed child into their home. It seemed Konoha was sorely lacking in the good Samaritan department.

"Err, sorry," Ino apologized after a moment. The kitsune waved her apology off, not caring in the slightest about a little slip of the tongue. When it became obvious her comment hadn't even slightly annoyed the genin, the blonde girl continued, "Besides, you're not really a stranger, Uzumaki…you're just strange."

Naruto gave a short bark of laughter and replied, "Can't argue that one."

The kitsune looked up and eyed the sun's position for a moment, then craned his neck back to mutter something to a crow resting on his shoulder. The bird nodded and took off. A few seconds later, the rest of the birds on Naruto and several dozen in the branches of the trees near him all took flight following the first. The large murder swarmed in the air for a minute, then took off towards the village. They looked like a ominous black cloud spindling it's way through the air above Konoha.

Ino watched the murder go, then looked up and asked, "What was that about?"

Naruto gave her a wicked grin and said, "What? Can't you just peek into my thoughts and figure it out for yourself?"

The earthbound genin huffed a little and said, "I try to be polite and stay out of people's thoughts most of the time. Unless you're screaming in your head or focusing on me really hard, I won't pick up what you're thinking."

"Ah, an honorable spy, I see," The arboreal genin replied with a teasing smile. At Ino's glare he raised his hands in an appeasing manner, "Hey, hey! No need to get mad. I appreciate the sentiment."

"Jerk…" The blonde girl muttered. "Are you going to tell what's up with the crows or not?"

"Nothing big. Just a little surprise for a mutual acquaintance of ours," Naruto answered with a not-so-innocent grin. In fact, he looked like the cat that ate the canary…Or more accurately, the fox that had broken into the chicken coop.

"We have lots of mutual acquaintances…Which one are you talking about?" Ino asked with a suspicious look.

"Not teeeelllliiiinnnngggg!" Naruto answered in a sing-song tone while crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out at the pretty genin. Since he was still standing horizontally off the side of a tree, he looked like some bizarre blonde monkey-fox.

Ino didn't bother to answer. She narrowed her eyes in concentration as she stared up at the other genin. Her eyes lighted from their normal blue-gray to a haunting teal color as she focused on the kitsune's mind.

"Nah-nah! Too late!" Naruto yelled at the top of his lungs, scaring the living crap out of Ino. Her face bunched up in a cute (though frightening) frown as she glared in confusion at her fellow shinobi. The kitsune elaborated for her when he noticed she wasn't catching on. "I'm not thinking about it anymore! You can't pry it out of me, ha ha!."

"Stop acting like a damn kid and quit goofing off," The psychic girl ordered as her eyes shifted back to normal. Her annoyance was mostly because Naruto was right: she _couldn't_ figure out who he was referring to. He had literally forced himself to forget the subject he'd just been thinking and cloaked what was left with a chaotic mishmash of half-formed ideas. The amount of willpower such a trick must require to pull off was very high, especially considering the other genin almost certainly had no psychic training whatsoever.

"Fine, ruin my good mood," Naruto replied in a normal (if slightly teasing) tone as he went into a squat again.

"Will you get down from there? You're giving me a crick in the neck," Ino complained, rubbing her thin neck for emphasis.

"I dunno…Is it safe? You're not going to stick me with a Chidori again, are you?" The kitsune asked in a semi-serious tone.

An embarrassed flush colored Ino's cheeks an interesting shade of crimson. He just _had_ to bring that up again, didn't he? That fight had not ended in her proudest moment.

"No, I won't use the Chidori, you ass!" The female genin yelled. She was not going to live that down for a long time.

Naruto made a noncommittal, "Hmmm," and kicked off the tree trunk. He landed in a smooth crouch about ten feet from the other shinobi. A shift in the wind brought Ino's light scent towards him. Unlike Hana's, her smell didn't bother him in the slightest. She smelled like synthetic potting soil, different wildflowers, some sort of light perfume, and a hint of clean female. It was a very pleasant odor and one that he hadn't been able to enjoy the last time they'd had a conversation. Her scent was surprisingly relaxing and he felt his guard lowering naturally.

"Well, I guess I don't have to watch my back around you," The kitsune said in a light tone. He stood and walked off towards a shady patch of ground between some trees.

"Where're you going?" Ino called after him.

"It's going to get hot soon, right? I want to relax while we wait for Hatake!" The other genin yelled back. The blonde girl shrugged and followed after without much hesitation.

She found Naruto sitting cross-legged facing a low tree stump that had a piece of paper laid out across it. Feeling like she was joining the kitsune at a table, Ino sat down on the opposite side of the stump and watched him curiously as he scribbled out a couple lines of kanji. He leaned back and let the ink dry for a moment, then folded the paper up into an envelope and performed the same set of seals that he'd used on his previous letter.

"Gaara of the Desert," Naruto clearly stated when the paper glowed green. Up close, Ino could see the fibrous surface shift into the ominous red-orange color. Strange black ink designs wound their way like ivy across the surface of the envelope and a blot of blood-red wax bubbled up in the center to seal it closed. As she watched, the wax shifted and took on the imprint of a simple spiral, looking as though Naruto had pressed a stamp into its surface. One of the ink tendrils turned white and separated from the surface of the paper to form a loop of string.

"What did you just do to that?" Ino asked, pointing at the letter while making sure to keep her hand a safe distance from it.

"Tegami bakudan no jutsu. Little trick I picked up awhile back," Naruto casually replied as he used his thumb nail to slice open his finger. He smeared the trickle along the inside of his first two fingers and pressed it to the stump. "Kuchiyose no jutsu."

With a puff of ninja smoke, a small raven appeared. It ruffled its feathers for a moment, then looked to the kitsune for orders.

"Take this to Gaara of the Desert, please. And be careful. I don't want anyone to see you or to know he's receiving messages from out of the country," The genin ordered in a low tone. The small bird bowed, then bent to put its head through the string loop. It took off into the air at a considerably slower pace than any of the other birds Ino had seen that day.

Ino gave a satisfied nod, both to Naruto's answer and to the caution he was taking in contacting Gaara. The person he mailed earlier was probably in a highly protected area, otherwise he wouldn't have used such a large…bird…that…

Wait, did he just…

"Did you just say _Letter Bomb _no jutsu?" Ino yelled in disbelief. Almost instantly another thought hit her and she roared, "Did you just say _Gaara of the Desert_?"

Naruto stared at the other genin for several moments before saying, "You know, Ino-san, caffeine isn't the answer to life's problems. Eating healthy, getting plenty of sleep, and the occasional visit to a therapist will do much more for you than overdosing on any stimulant."

"I'm not high on caffeine and I'm not crazy!" Ino shrieked, causing the kitsune's ears to temporarily deafen themselves in protest. The blonde girl reached across the stump and jabbed her finger into the teen's chest as she said, "You're the one chatting with a psychopath and mailing bombs to people!"

"Relax, Ino-san, I'm not bombing anybody. Well, if they're smart enough to not open a letter that's addressed to someone else, then I won't be bombing anyone," The other genin replied with a lighthearted shrug. His face then became annoyed and he said, "Hey! Gaara's my friend! Don't go around calling him a psychopath, he's not that bad when you get to…Err, he's kind of nice when…Hmm…Well he _is_ pretty damn crazy, but he's calmed down some in the last few years. Besides, he's still my best friend, so don't talk bad about him."

"You're _friends_ with that lunatic?" Ino asked in disbelief, making no secret that she thought he was the one who should be seeing a shrink.

"Yeah, I am. He's a very good friend of mine and besides…Err, I'm not exactly a shining example of sanity myself, so I can't really hold it against him that he's nuts," Naruto replied with a slightly sheepish shrug. His expression became distant and dark as he said, "I doubt a single person exists who could survive the living nightmare that was his life and come out better than him."

"What're you talking about? Isn't he…Oh, right. He's a demon-vessel," The blonde girl said in a far more subdued tone. She gave the other genin an appraising look and said, "But you handled your burden far better than he did and while I agree you might be a little unstable, you aren't a murdering madman."

"So you know about the Kyuubi. Somehow I'm not surprised," Naruto said in a neutral voice. He rested his elbows on the stump and laced his fingers together, making a spot for his chin to rest on. He eyed the ground for a moment, then glanced up at Ino, "My life has been hell. There is no other way to say it. It's been a subtle hell, but still a hell. However, I'm the product of necessity. Yondaime had no other choice but to sacrifice a human child to trap the Kyuubi. Gaara on the other hand…Once upon a time, Gaara's father got it into his head that he wanted a ninja super-weapon. So he goes and finds an ancient jutsu along with the spirit of an insane priest turned demon, then uses both on Gaara to possess him…While he was still in his mother's womb."

Ino's jaw dropped in horror. She slowly whispered, "Kami…"

Naruto gave her a dark, but understanding look. If Orochimaru hadn't already killed the Kazekage, he himself probably would have, regardless of the treaty between the Sand and Leaf. There were some crimes that simply couldn't be left unanswered for.

"It gets worse, believe it or not," The kitsune said in a voice so low it resembled a growl. "There's a reason why seals performed on infants are done the day they're born and not sooner. Gaara's body survived, but it was altered on a base level, though as far as I can tell not in a bad way, thank Kami. His mind, however, did not survive entirely. Worse, the demon he's possessed with is infamous for destroying its hosts' minds bit by bit whenever they sleep. Gaara can't sleep without unleashing Shukaku and having a hunk of his mind devoured. He goes for _years _without sleeping. Human's need sleep, Ino-san, it's simply not negotiable. Without sleep, the mind decays rapidly. Gaara was going to lose his mind eventually either way. The Kazekage, knowing this, took action and proved once and for all that he's the uncontested champion of the "Worst Parent of the Millennium" award.

"He spoiled Gaara from the day he was born, while not providing any real human contact for him aside from the brother of his mother. Like me, every villager hated Gaara and was terrified of him. Unlike me, he had no laws to protect him and his powers weren't properly contained. Long story short, one day he flips out and kills a guy. Guess what the Kazekage does? He panics and tries to scrap his little pet project. From the time Gaara was six till the his own death, the Kazekage sent a constant stream of assassins after him. Know who the first one was? His uncle. Up until that point, Gaara believed him to be the only person to ever love him. Not only did the guy try to kill him, but then he fills his mind with all sorts of shit about him being a monster and how his mother died cursing his name and everyone in the village. All that horror on a six year old child's mind, which was already suffering potential madness. Still wonder why he's insane?"

Ino stared open jawed at Naruto for almost two minutes, trying to get her thoughts focused enough to reply. She finally broke her fish impersonation and choked out, "That's the _sickest_ thing I've ever heard."

"Yeah, it is," Naruto nodded, sharing the opinion. "Believe me, I thought I had it bad, but when I met Gaara I realized it could have been much worse. _Much_ worse. Frankly, I'm impressed that he has _any_ sanity at all left. I probably would've broke years ago."

"…I wouldn't sell yourself or your life short, Uzumaki," Ino quietly said after a long pause. When she met his eyes, Naruto was surprised at the intensity in the blue-gray orbs. "Gaara may have had it worse, but that's only from your point of view. To any normal person, there's no real difference. Your _lives_ from the day you two were born have been _nightmares_. Hell, my worst dream hasn't come close to a single day from either your life or Gaara's. Kami-sama, Uzumaki, you were never even smiled at! You never had a single friend till after you became a genin. Do you realize that there isn't a single person on this planet that has the slightest idea of what it's like to be completely and totally hated from the day of you were born? No one can understand what it's like to be hated for no reason by _everyone_ and to have no memory of kindness. Do not _ever_ think that what you went through the first twelve years of your life can be excused or belittled in any way. For God's sake, how can you _not_ be insane? How can you _not_ be an enraged madman? Why the hell haven't you let the Kyuubi out and finished this village off? How can you-"

Naruto's large and warm hand gently cut off Ino's tirade by covering her mouth. The small smile he gave her was the most beautiful and heartbreaking sight she had ever seen in her life. It was shy. It was appreciative. It was warm. It was sad. It was…Just him. Unguarded and happy that someone cared about him.

Ino swore to herself that she'd never forget that expression as long as she lived.

"It's alright, Ino-san," Naruto quietly said as he leaned back and removed his hand from her face.

"No it's not," She firmly replied.

"…No, it's not," He conceded with a nod. He gave a sheepish little smile and tapped the side of his head as he said, "I may be a little crazy and Gaara may be very crazy, but don't worry about it. I'm a survivor. I've never given up once in my life and I won't start now. Gaara's a survivor too, in his way. We'll be fine in the end."

"It's still not right," Ino said in a stubborn voice. Her face tingled slightly where Naruto's hand had been.

"I never said it was. I said we'd be fine, or at least as fine as we can ever get," The kitsune said with a light shrug. "I can either accept my life and keep going or I can let it get to me and be a depressed, miserable, boring mess the rest of my life."

"How can you handle it?" The blonde girl asked in a small, quiet tone.

"That's where being a little unhinged comes in handy," Naruto replied with an amused smile. "Being a little crazy can make a horribly overwhelming position a little better. Or at least endurable."

"You're a lot stronger than I could ever be in your position," Ino said, briefly meeting the other teen's twilight eyes before eyeing the ground.

"Now why worry about something silly like that?" The genin asked in a lightly chiding tone. "Don't feel guilty that you don't have a burden as heavy as me and don't contrast yourself to me either. You're you and I'm me and nothing will change that. Asking yourself 'what if' or comparing yourself to me is pointless."

"You know, I think Shikamaru said that once to me or Chouji," Ino replied with a small smile.

"A wise man," Naruto sagely intoned, nodding his head in a superior manner.

The blonde girl gave an unladylike snort and whapped him on the shoulder. "Quit acting high and mighty, Uzumaki. It doesn't become you."

She rolled her eyes in amusement at the kitsune's wounded expression as he grabbed his upper arm in mock pain.

"You wound me, foul she-devil! I suffer so horribly in my life and this is your sympathy?" Naruto loudly declared before collapsing across the stump as though dead.

"A _little_ crazy, huh?" Ino dryly asked as she raised an eyebrow. When the other genin didn't twitch, she poked his fuzzy head and said, "Get up, unless you want me to turn you into a fox-skin rug."

"Wench," Naruto calmly retorted as he sat up. "Besides, it's not like I have a monopoly on being weird in the head. We're all trained by killers to become killers since early childhood and none of us question the institution. Exactly how that's considered sane, I have no idea. Though if the higher-ups are nuts, then that explains why they never think we're nuts. I guess they only think it's a real problem when someone goes postal and kills an entire clan."

Ino shrugged, then nodded. He made a good point, though it wasn't something she wanted to consider for too long.

After that, they sat quietly for awhile in the peaceful and empty training grounds. The morning sun was rising higher in the sky and its rays broke through the slowly waving canopy overhead in some places. The kitsune leaned back a little on his hands and enjoyed the fresh, cool breeze blowing through the trees and across the shady grass they were relaxing in. Well, Naruto was pretty relaxed. His fellow genin, on the other hand, had her pretty face scrunched up in thought.

"Got something on your mind?" The half-demon asked as his eyes idly traced a falling leaf as it fluttered through the air.

Ino frowned in thought for several moments before answering, "Tell me about Gaara. The real Gaara. The one who's your friend; not the murdering monster."

"What makes you think there _is_ a real Gaara?" Naruto asked as he refocused his unnerving eyes on her. There was a bit of curiosity in their incandescent depths though, which kept the psychic from withdrawing her question.

"You. No matter how similar he is to you, if Gaara was nothing more than a raging lunatic you wouldn't associate with him at all. That can only mean there's something beyond that psychopathic exterior. Something that's worth being his friend in your eyes," The blonde girl replied.

"…Very true," Naruto slowly answered. He ran his hand through his fuzzy hair for a moment, then asked, "Alright, what do you want to know?"

"Anything, really. He's like a dark reflection of you and I'm curious about where you end and he begins," Ino said. At the kitsune's smirk she hastened to add, "You're my new teammate, dumbass! We should learn more about each other if we're going to work together. Don't read so much into it."

"Uh-huh…" Naruto said after a moment, not letting his teasing smile drop until the other genin's face was bright red. Whether from embarrassment or fury he didn't really know, but he did know it was fun to mess with her like this. Sensing violence in the air, he held up his hands in a placating manner and said, "Alright, alright, truce. I'll talk."

The psychic girl relaxed back and let her hand drift away from her holster. She gestured to the other genin that she was listening and leaned back on her hands, giving him her undivided attention.

"Gaara's, well the real Gaara anyways, deceptive. I don't mean in a manipulative way, it's just how he is to other people," Naruto said after a moment's thought. He continued, "Believe it or not, he's the most loyal person in the world to the few people he cares about. He'd do damn near anything for his siblings and me. Err, he doesn't give a crap about anyone else though, so it's not a wise idea to get in his way. I think he has a degree of respect for Lee, though I'm not sure seeing as how Fuzzy-brows came up rarely in conversation between us."

"So he'd die for you or his brother and sister?" Ino asked in mild disbelief. The idea of that raging killer having feelings like that was simply unreal.

"No," Naruto replied immediately. At the other genin's surprised look he smirked a little and said, "Gaara simply wouldn't let any of us die, including himself. No matter what the cost, he'd keep us all alive. And if by some miracle one of us did die on his watch, he'd walk through Hell to get our souls back from the Death God himself. I almost feel sorry for the freaks down there if they're ever stupid enough to get in his way. And by the bizarre chance one of us got into Heaven, he'd storm the Gates to return us to Earth. He's stubborn like that."

Ino stared at him for a _very_ long moment before stating, "I don't know whether you're joking or not and I never want to."

Naruto's smirk widened into a grin at the comment. Ignoring it for the time being, he continued, "On a personal level, Gaara is surprisingly shy. He may seem like a confident, uber killing machine, but when it comes to dealing with people he has no idea how to act. Usually he's quiet during conversations of three or more people, even if it's just me and his siblings. One on one he talks more, but he's sill quiet. He hasn't learned how to give proper facial expressions either, so to someone who doesn't know him well it feels like you're talking to a statue. But when you get used to him and draw him out of his shell a little, you'd be surprised at how interesting he becomes.

"Gaara's brilliant. I'm not sure if he's genius level or not, but he's pretty damn smart. Way smarter than me, at any rate. He's also perceptive as hell, though he occasionally misses things a normal person would get right away. He doesn't talk often, but when he does it's sharp and to the point. He can turn an entire conversation on end with a single comment or end a debate in three or four words. Sometimes it's a bit disturbing how well he can speak when he wants to. He could be a leader exceeding a Sannin if he put the effort into it. He has power, brains, and is violently protective of the few people who make him happy. It's a wonder he hasn't been asked to become Kazekage yet. It'll be awhile before I get to his level, though I can say for a fact that there's no better rival on this continent for me. Glad it's become friendly or I'd probably be a pile of rotting mush somewhere in the desert right now."

Ino stared at him quizzically after he finished speaking. Naruto noticed the scrutiny and shifted uncomfortably.

"What?" He asked when the girl didn't show any signs of looking away.

"Nothing, it's just…" Ino began, then trailed off. After a second she continued, "You're very different from the person you were before you left with Jiraiya."

"How so?" Naruto asked, puzzled. He shrugged it off and said, "I thought we were talking about Gaara anyways."

"Well now I'm talking about you," Ino stated as she leaned a little over the stump and fixed him with an intent gaze. "You're…different. Before you were always yelling about how great you were and how many awesome skills you had and how you'd beat everybody. Now…You're powerful. _Very _powerful. And you're skilled and smart. But you're not bragging about it. Actually, you haven't said much to me about yourself. Then you go and calmly admit that there's someone stronger, smarter, and who would probably make a better Kage than you and you aren't upset about it in the least. You're…Well, laid-back isn't the right word and mature sure as hell isn't..."

"Thank you," Naruto deadpanned.

"You're welcome," Ino chirped with smug grin. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she tried to come up with a word to describe the kitsune's new attitude. Deciding to take a direct approach, she reached across the stump and laid the fingers of both hands across the sides of the other genin's face.

"Uh, what're you doing?" Naruto asked in puzzlement. He nearly jumped at the first subtle brush on his mind.

"Shush up, I'm just getting a picture of your mind," Ino replied as her eyes turned teal and began to faintly glow.

"Uh, okay. You might wanna ask next time, seeing as how most people probably think it's rude to just jump into someone else's head," The kitsune replied in a dry tone. He didn't attempt to remove the girl's hands though. Her fingers were long and thin, but soft and pleasantly cool. They felt surprisingly comfortable on his face. As the presence in his mind wasn't setting off any instinctive alarms, he allowed the psychic girl to proceed.

Ino closed her eyes in concentration as she carefully sifted through Naruto's thoughts and surface memories. While she could read another person's mind from a distance, she only got a full and clear picture from close range and physical contact. As such, her first impression of the kitsune's mind was that it was both more organized and far messier than she had ever thought. Naruto's mind was hectic, there was no doubt about that. His thoughts were constantly racing here and there, bouncing between different ideas and briefly touching on a memory, then zipping off somewhere else. It was the same short attention span she had felt when she'd fought him a month ago. At the time, she had taken it as an insult, but now that she could see how his thoughts worked up close, she realized it was just the way he was wired. It seemed that he hadn't lost his hyper nature after all.

There was a second side to his mind and that's what surprised her with its organization. While the teen's surface thoughts raced, his deeper level thinking lurked, for lack of a better word. It was ready to move at an instant's notice, to apply focus on any given thought or memory within a second. This must have been what had given her such an icy shock with it's intensity when she'd activated the Chidori and again when he fought Kakashi several days ago. Despite its constant readiness, Ino couldn't call this part of Naruto's mind poised or tense. It was far too…well, relaxed wasn't the right word, but there was a distinct lack of tension that she would normally associate with being ever ready. It was simply…aware. It was always watching, but never reacting unless the situation warranted its involvement.

That's it. That's the word she was looking for.

"Calm. You're calm now," Ino spoke out loud. She opened her eyes briefly to meet Naruto's (ironically) calm gaze. "You're always ready, but you're not tense in the slightest. It's almost zen-like. Like one of those movies where the old monk preaches about inner harmony being key to becoming a true martial artist."

"Zen, huh?" The kitsune replied with a raised eyebrow. "I wouldn't say that. I just take life as it comes and change it when I need to. No need to complicate things too much."

"Hmm," Was all Ino replied, still convinced there was more to it than that. She closed her eyes again and refocused on the kitsune's mind.

The psychic girl almost jerked when she 'tripped' across a pothole in Naruto's brain.

Well, _that_ was interesting. There were splits in the teens mind, in both the hyper and calm sections. In fact, tracing along them revealed a long series of tiny gaps in the mind of the genin that seemed almost like a stitched wound of some sort. It ran all throughout the boy's mind, dividing it almost exactly in half. No wonder the idiot was unhinged; his mind was split in two and only partially held together! The more she probed, the more Ino began to realize that Naruto's mind was not what she'd originally assumed it to be by any means. While it was overall unified and healthy, each gap revealed what seemed to be two radically different thought patterns that clashed with each other.

It was like Naruto had split personalities that were in conflict or his mind was a mixture of two that was still incomplete. As ludicrous as it sounded, the latter seemed to be the truth of the matter. It seemed as though two minds had merged into one, but hadn't been able to completely compromise in some places. Overall they worked together fine, but there shouldn't be a _together_. A mind should only be one uniform structure, not two trying to work as one.

Without even pausing to consider what she was doing, Ino concentrated on one gap in particular and encouraged it to mend together totally. It took only a few moments to end the conflict and smooth over the hole, but to the psychic girl it seemed to take twenty minutes. She nodded to herself when it was done and started to move on to another split when Naruto's sudden gasp caused her eyes to open.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked as his eyes opened wide. It was like a tickling spider was carefully changing the web that was his mind.

"It doesn't hurt does it?" Ino asked in concern, though she didn't totally halt her self-appointed task.

"N-no…It doesn't hurt," The kitsune said with an uncharacteristic stutter. He shuddered a little as the girl repaired another conflict. It was tingly, like that weird feeling when he was really cold and got into a hot bath, only inside his head. It wasn't a bad feeling. but it was _very_ strange.

"Do you want me to stop?" The psychic genin asked as she mended another gap. Almost immediately she found and healed another, causing Naruto's reply to halt in its tracks. His voice caught, then he quickly formed a new reply.

"…No, it's alrIGHT! …Alright, it's alright," Naruto managed to get out as one nudge sent a tingling shock through his brain. It was a weird feeling, to say the least, but in a way it was kind of nice. Ino had healed half a dozen splits already and now she was going back and reorganizing his thought patterns into what they should naturally be. In fact, she was even doing it to the normal sections of his brain as well. It was kind of nice, having his chaotic thoughts organized and tucked away in their proper place. It made thinking easier and more efficient, even if the process felt strange while it was going on. With every conflict the psychic girl mended, a mental ache he hadn't even been aware of was relieved. It was like getting rid off a deep headache that had been going on for so long he'd unconsciously forgotten about it.

"Good. Now relax and let me work," Ino ordered, though her voice was light.

The sun slowly rose in the sky as the two genins sat still in the shady grove. It was close to three hours later when Ino finally healed the last tear and completed reorganizing Naruto's mind overall. When the last little thought fragment was put in its natural place, she nodded in satisfaction and finally opened her eyes. They had already returned to their natural gray color, as the long use of her Bloodline (even on such a subtle level) had drained almost all of her chakra reserves. As it was, she was barely able to get her hands underneath her as she sagged backwards away from Naruto. The blonde girl shifted so her legs were stretched out across the grass next to the stump, relieving the cramping that had built up from sitting in one position for too long.

Naruto simply stared at her, a little awed by what she'd just done. His mind felt…whole. Smooth and efficient. It felt like a painful fog that he hadn't even noticed had been lifted from his thoughts. It was so much easier to think now, to consider and plan. It seemed Naruto's mind and the Kyuubi's hadn't fused as thoroughly as he'd originally thought. Amazing that this slip of a girl had gone in and not only completed the merging, but had done it perfectly and repaired any damage the strain had caused on his mind. It felt incredible. Ino had even gone so far as to sort the overload he'd been putting up with for the past few days. It would probably be a couple weeks before he had to meditate again. Hell, maybe he'd just ask Ino to mop up his mind again.

Hmm, no. It wouldn't do to become over dependent on her psychic support. It was doubtful he'd need it really. His mind was finally whole now, so it would be able to handle the mental stress the lack of full REM sleep and memory flashbacks imposed on him. Still, it would be nice if she'd clean his head every few months or so. The kitsune didn't see any problem with that.

"So…" Ino said, breaking Naruto's line of thought. She idly reached up to wipe a small line of sweat of her temple.

"So…" Naruto slowly replied. He paused a second, trying to figure out anything to say. "You cut your hair."

Ino reached a hand up and ran it through her neck length, pale blonde locks. She shrugged a little self-consciously and said, "It's actually a little longer than usual. I haven't had the chance to get it cut recently. Hatake made a pretty good point awhile back, and I agree with him, that long hair is a pretty big disadvantage in a fight. You uh…think it looks okay?"

Naruto watched the unbound strands of lemonade blonde hair gently wave about in the breeze and let a small smile come to his face.

""It looks nice," He said after a moment.

Normally such a simple response from a man would have had Ino raving, but the smile on the kitsune's face said far more than words.

"Your eyes have changed. They're…different now," The female genin said after a couple moments of watching her comrade.

"You think they look okay?" Naruto asked in a lightly teasing tone, his smile growing amused.

Ino stared at his incandescent, twilight-blue orbs for several moments, observing the shifts in color and their unnerving intensity.

"They look nice," She said after a moment, an amused but genuine smile growing to match the other genin's.

For several minutes they relaxed in companionable silence, broken only by the birds in the trees and the wind blowing through the canopy. Naruto let his mind wander for a bit and stared off into the distance for awhile. The air was beginning to get hot, making him savor their shade all the more.

"So…Are you going to tell me why you have memories thousands of years old or are you going to let me think you've been possessed by that damn fox," Ino suddenly spoke up, almost causing Naruto to jump. He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head at his own stupidity.

"I should've guessed," The half-demon ruefully shrugged. He asked curiously, "How much did you see?"

"Not that much. Your memories were actually pretty organized for the most part, so I didn't go into to them deeply," Ino answered. A slightly disturbed expression appeared on her face as she said, "I did see a few things though. Civilizations that don't exist. Animals that can't be real. Places that I've never seen even in my dreams. One of them I saw…I saw a canyon that was so big it seemed like a part of the earth had been knocked clean off into space. It went from horizon to horizon and the cliffs were so rugged and beautiful…I know there's no place remotely like that on the continent and you couldn't have too gone far on foot in a year. These memories aren't yours and I want to know what's going on."

Naruto got a far away look in his eyes and a strange little smile on his face as he called up the memory in question. Of the many memories he'd absorbed from the Kyuubi so far, it was his favorite, or at least a close second or third.

"The Grand Canyon, the most spectacular marvel of the desert southwest and the reason Arizona was on the map," The kitsune said with a nostalgic grin. At Ino's totally confused look he explained, "It's a massive rock formation in the middle of a rugged desert in a land far across the eastern ocean. The dominant civilization called the country America, though I have no idea what it was renamed after the Cataclysm. A very old and very close friend of mine claims that entire desert land as his home. He first showed me the canyon a hundred thousand years before the first humans came to that land. One of the few things the invaders did well was give it a proper name. Grand Canyon seems so simple, yet perfect, don't you think? Certainly better than Coyote's original name for it: 'The Biggest Pissing Hole On Earth.'"

"Arizona? Coyote?" Ino slowly repeated. She stared at Naruto for along moment, then said, "If I hadn't seen it myself, I'd lock you in a mental ward."

"Like they could keep me contained," The other genin replied with a dismissive wave.

"…So why do you have hundred thousand year old memories of the world's largest urinal?" The psychic girl sarcastically asked.

Naruto thought about it hard for a moment, then replied, "This is going to take awhile to explain."

"Extremely weird stories always do," Ino responded and settled back into a comfortable position to listen.

* * *

Tsunade strode through the halls of the lower sections of the Hokage Tower, forcing ninjas and aides to dive out of the way lest they get bowled over. Her face was expressionless, though her swift, powerful strides hinted that she wasn't pleased with something. As she moved past an open doorway, Shizune stepped out and hurried to keep up with her mentor. 

"Do you have any idea why they called an emergency Council?" The young medic asked in a low voice as she leaned down towards Tsunade's ear.

"No, but it had better not be what I think it is," The Hokage growled back.

"You don't think it's about Naruto-kun, do you?" Shizune asked in a surprised voice. Her mentor took that tone only when someone was threatening or insulting her little brother. "They allowed him to become a genin on active duty again, didn't they? Why would they stir up trouble now?"

"They let him back on, but don't think for a minute that it's what they wanted to do," Tsunade answered as they turned a corner and passed through an ANBU checkpoint without slowing down.

"What do you think they'll do?" The younger medic asked.

"This is a full Council meeting. Most of the Clan Heads will be here too, so whatever it is will be big," The Fifth said. Her eyes darkened as she muttered, "Or at least in their pompous minds it'll be big."

Shizune fell silent as they approached the massive double doors leading to the main Council room. The guards bowed and opened them immediately, allowing both ninjas to pass through. The inner room was large, being almost two hundred feet wide and a hundred long. There were four rows of built in chairs forming a horizontal arc around the center of the room, where a podium stood. Behind it by about ten feet was a large chair (that somewhat resembled a judge's bench) elevated above the rest of the seats. It was to this seat that Tsunade strode towards, with Shizune following right behind as the Hokage walked down the stairs and past the Council members.

Tsunade took her seat in the Hokage's chair and looked out over the gathered Council and clan lords. The twelve Council members were all present in their wrinkled and/or gray glory. The Fifth carefully took note of their faces, getting a feel for their mood. Most of them held reserved looks, though a few seemed smug which immediately put her on guard.

"Tsunade-sama, look at Mitokado-sama," Shizune muttered in an extremely low tone from her position next to and slightly behind the Hokage.

"I see him," Tsunade replied as she let her eyes casually wander over to the old council member. Mitokado Homura stood out from the other Council members in that he didn't appear to be neutral or pleased.

He looked downright pissed.

Tsunade felt her guard rise further. Of the twelve Council members, three supported Naruto's return to Konoha. Homura was one of them. Trained alongside Sarutobi, he had kept his wits about him despite his many years. Like Tsunade, he knew that Naruto would play an enormous factor in the future of Konoha, for good or ill. Needless to say, he thought good was the better option and didn't want to alienate the demon-vessel. He considered it simple logic. The councilman had been a major supporter of Arashi's rise to the title of Yondaime as opposed to Orochimaru or one of the heads of the Hyuuga and Uchiha clans. He wasn't taken in by flashy Bloodlines, noble ancestry, or prodigal genius. Homura wanted only a few simple things for the man they'd entrust their lives with: genuine loyalty, a stable mind, and solid results.

Arashi was the only one who met that all of the criteria, therefore he was the one Homura backed for the title of Fourth. While the old councilman didn't control the voices of his colleagues, as a senior member and Sandaime's teammate he carried a large amount of influence over the other members. Both Arashi and Sarutobi had mentioned in their journals that many of their unpopular decisions wouldn't have been fully ratified had Homura not backed them up. Tsunade had been greatly relieved that he had decided to support her on the Naruto issue. That made her uphill battle a little leveler. With Naruto's general unpopularity, she needed all the allies she could get. Homura had only asked her if she honestly believed the Kyuubi was fully under control and had accepted her affirmative answer without further question. With the Leaf in such dire straits, the shrewd man wanted the demon's power on their side, even if it meant he earned the other Council members' displeasure.

The other two Council members who supported Naruto's reinstatement were wearing looks of displeasure as well. If they were pissed and the others were pleased, that could only mean the majority had concocted some scheme to get rid of the kitsune somehow.

Like Tsunade would let them get away with it, and right to her face no less.

"Alright, this meeting of the Fire Council will come to order. Spokesman, state the reason why this emergency has been called," The Fifth ordered, looking towards the gathered committee.

"We have come to order this day as we have received intelligence that an outlying farming community has been overrun by missing-nins, possible Sound-nins. They're estimated to be over twenty members strong, with several chuunin and at least two jounin present," One of the smug Council members said as he stood.

"Regrettable, but your point is what exactly? Dispatch Hunter-nin squads to take care of it," Tsunade replied in a dry tone.

"Unfortunately, Hokage-sama, the ANBU Commander has reported that all his squads are currently indisposed for the next several days," The man replied. He was unable to keep a slightly pleased tone out of his voice. Out of the corner of her vision, the Fifth saw Homura rolling his eyes through his glasses. The Sannin's sharp mind immediately caught onto the Council's gimmick. It seemed they had convinced the Commander to go in on it as well.

She was going to have _words_ with that man later. Even ignoring her personal feelings on the matter, it was inexcusable for someone in a high ranking military position to allow himself to be coerced by a committee.

"I see. I'll arrange for a few standard teams to be dispatched to take care of the problem. If that is all…?" Tsunade said, clearly hinting that the matter was closed. As she knew he would, the spokesman immediately held up his hand to continue.

"If I may, Hokage-sama," The man said. His wrinkled lips kept twitching as he restrained himself from smiling in glee. "We are so shorthanded right now that the Council feels that we shouldn't move an unnecessary number of our nins away from Konoha. Therefore, we wish to have a single team go to deal with this issue."

"…I see. It would have to be an exceptional team to deal with such a large enemy force. I believe Gai's team is available at the moment. I know his students are more than capable of handling the average missing-nin," Tsunade replied, deliberately baiting the man into thinking she didn't see what his ploy was. She knew exactly what team he wanted to be sent.

"Actually, we feel Team 7 has the best skills to deal with this situation," The councilman said, finally allowing a satisfied smile to come to his face.

There it was, out in the open.

Tsunade was silent for almost a full minute, staring at the man with icy eyes and a neutral face that gave nothing away as to what she was thinking. The man felt his smile and sense of victory slowly slip away as the Fifth remained still as a statue. Even her student was expressionless. Neither gave a single reaction to the announcement. He was about to speak when Tsunade slowly stood up straight.

"Don't think for even an instant that I don't know what your little game is," The Godaime coldly said. The spokesman started to sputter in protest, but instantly fell silent when Tsunade fixed him with a glare that seemed to suck the air from his lungs. "Your petty feelings of vengeance have finally come to this: sending an innocent teenager and his equally innocent team into overwhelming odds to destroy something that has already been safely sealed."

Immediately a loud clamor erupted in the room.

"_Innocent_!" A voice roared out from the upper sections, temporarily drowning out the others.

"You do not have the right to speak here, Hiashi-san," Tsunade calmly said as she fixed her stare on the Hyuuga clan head. "This is a matter of the Council and myself to decide. Do not interrupt again."

"But Hokage-sama! That's not a child, it's the Kyuubi! It's the strongest demon on this world! We should take the opportunity to destroy it completely!" The pale man yelled, ignoring Chomaru's attempts to get him to calm down. More than a few voices yelled out their agreement.

A loud crack that stung the ears echoed sharply throughout the room. Everyone in the room jumped and fell dead silent at the sight of the utterly shattered table in front of Tsunade. The Sannin slowly pulled her hand back from her casual display of strength and stepped around the wreckage.

"Hyuuga Hiashi, you've just broken the Third's biggest law. Since you obviously have strong feelings on this matter, I'll ignore this incident this one time. However…" The Fifth said in an emotionless voice. Her eyes narrowed and Hiashi felt the hairs on his neck prickle as he found himself the focus of a _very_ deadly killing intent. "If you _ever_ break the rule laid down by my sensei and friend again, not only will I strip you of all authority outside of your clan, I will personally demonstrate what kind of agony the inventor of 1000 Years of Pain can inflict upon you."

Everyone flinched. _She_ invented that hellish technique?

"Escort him out of the Tower," Tsunade ordered to the guards. To the Hyuuga head, she said, "As punishment for this incident, you are banned from all Council meetings for the next two months. I suggest you use that time to think about your morals, Hiashi-_kun_."

The Clan Lord paled, then turned red with fury. His hand twitched, chakra automatically flowing into his fingertips. It was very hard not to wipe the look off that arrogant woman's face. She acted liked she was better than him, better than the Hyuu-

An icy wave of killing intent so powerful it felt like a bucket of freezing water slammed into Hiashi's senses. The pale man choked back a gasp of shock and stared wide eyed at the Hokage. The goading look in her eyes was all the proof he needed of the aura's source.

Of course she thought she was better than him. She _was_ better than him. Tsunade was a Sannin, for Kami's sake! Was he insane? Assuming the ANBU didn't nail him from all angles before he reached her, the Fifth was more than capable of taking him out with ease.

This wasn't at all like dealing with Sarutobi. Tsunade bit back.

As the guards led the clan lord away, Tsunade refocused her attention on the Council and remaining clan leaders. Several flinched at the furious look in her eyes.

"That goes for each and every one of you. I don't care how powerful you _think_ you are, if any of you break Sandaime's law I will strip you of all rank at the very least. I may even be inclined to have the Kazekage open up Wind Prison again," She ordered in a voice full of venom. Many more of audience flinched at that comment.

Not a soul on the continent wanted a thing to do with the Wind Country's shinobi prison. The _only_ shinobi prison in history that had never had a single prisoner escape.

"Now then, as for this latest game the Fire Council has cooked up, I will only say that all you have done here is begun to unravel your own power," The Fifth stated in a cold voice as she walked towards the podium. Not a single Council member said a word as she met the gazes of each and every one of them. "By attempting to place a fifteen year old genin in a situation that he can't survive solely for vengeance, you have proven yourselves unfit to make unbiased judgments."

Most of the Council jumped to their feet and began yelling at the Hokage, though the three on the end made no reaction.

"QUIET!" Tsunade roared, easily drowning out all their voices and silencing every dissenting person. Not even the most angry Council member could meet the look of fury in her eyes. "Do you realize that not only are you tying to kill a valuable and innocent teenager, you are also sacrificing two loyal and extremely skilled ninjas along with him. Yamanaka Ino is being hailed as the next prodigy of her generation and _everyone_ knows who Hatake Kakashi is and his priceless value to the Leaf. In a time of war, you would be willing to destroy three of our strongest shinobi for the sake of a fifteen year old grudge. You are _not_ fit to be in power. I can't remove you for now, but I promise you will not be in office for more than a year, one way or the other."

Tsunade slowly cracked her neck from side to side before she spoke again. It was a habit she'd picked up from Naruto and she had to admit it was handy as body language. It certainly kept each shocked man and woman on the Council further off balance.

"That said, the mission will go ahead, though there will be a strict condition," The Fifth casually continued.

She held back a smirk at the confused faces. The spokesman cautiously stood up.

"Hokage-sama," His tone was definitely more respectful now and more than a little hesitant. "You are willing to allow the mission to continue?"

"I am," Tsunade calmly replied, crossing her arms over her ample chest.

The man glanced at some of his colleagues, then back up at her. He hesitantly asked, "Then what is your condition?"

"That if Team 7 passes this little 'test', no further attempts like this will be made on Uzumaki Naruto or anyone who associates with him. Furthermore, Naruto himself will not answer to any of you, only to myself and his immediate commander chosen by me. His activities will remain confidential and you will not make any attempts to discover their true nature. All of his records will be sealed, again only accessible by me or someone I directly authorize," Tsunade stated in a level tone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of Naruto's supporters mutter something into Homura's ear. He nodded to the woman's comment and they both inclined their heads at the Hokage in approval.

Tsunade refocused her attention on the Council majority, who were muttering energetically amongst themselves, obviously weighing the possibility of losing control over the demon-vessel against the chance that he might be killed off for good. After a couple minutes of low debate, the spokesman finally nodded at them and stood again to face the Fifth.

"We accept your conditions, Hokage-sama. Should the Kyu-…_Uzumaki_ survive this mission, the Fire Council will relinquish all authority over him and leave him in your hands," The councilman said.

"I'll have my conditions in writing signed by you before Team 7 goes anywhere," Tsunade calmly replied.

"Hokage-sama, if we may…Why are you agreeing to this at all?" The man spoke up. The rest of the Council watched the Hokage, curious about her answer.

Tsunade finally allowed a slow, pleased smirk to grow on her face. Well, this was a nicely reversed trap. All it needed now was for Naruto and Kakashi to pull through on their end and it would be perfectly sprung.

"Because, to put it simply, none of you know a damn thing about Uzumaki Naruto and you've just proven it," She said, allowing her grin to grow at the shocked looks appearing on some of the smarter Council members' faces. The Sannin restrained her smirk a little as she inclined her head and said, "Gentlemen and women, this meeting is adjourned."

As the Hokage and her student left the room, somehow the Fire Council felt like they'd been played for suckers by the legendary herself.

* * *

"That's a hell of a story," Ino quietly said as she advanced three squads of ANBU over a ridge. She spared her opponent a quick glance and said, "How many memories have you absorbed?" 

"About a thousand individual ones automatically. I've searched out about two hundred more on my own," Naruto replied as he calmly withdrew a line of chuunins back from a small plain. He allowed himself a bit of a smile when he saw the other genin falling for his trap. He casually hid several Hunter-nins behind the trees lining the field and waited. "Considering a human mind alone would have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of memories that's not very much overall. I've barely scratched the surface of the Kyuubi."

"What kind of stuff do you search for?" The psychic girl asked as she charged several teams of jounins and chuunins after Naruto's retreating chuunins. Though this was interesting, she was more interested in the kitsune's answers. Anything that had to do with the mind fascinated her, for obvious reasons.

"Anything really. New jutsu, strange places I've never been, scientific knowledge, something fun to re-experience…That kind of stuff," Naruto replied with a shrug. He smiled to himself and suddenly sprang his ambush. Ino let out a wail of dismay as jounins using earth type jutsu erupted from the ground in the middle of her small army, scattering the ranks. She retreated them to the forest line only to be cut off by Hunter-nins. Then the retreating chuunins suddenly reversed directions and became reinforcements for the main attack force. Her soldiers were gone in seconds.

"Shit. That's the fifth time you've beaten me," Ino cursed as she waved her hand over the scroll spread across the stump. The 3D terrain map rippled and reset while changing to a new scenario.

"Ero-sennin had me doing these things for hours every day for over a year, so I'm pretty damn used to them by now. I think we only have two more scenarios on this scroll though. I'll have to get his lazy butt up to make me some more," The kitsune said as he quickly took stock of his forces. He and Jiraiya had modified the Sannin's situation puzzle scrolls into a two player strategy game. 'Kage vs. Kage' was tricky to get used to as the player had to be quick thinking and was limited by a fog of war simulation. Still, it was surprisingly accurate and was great fun while helping with tactics and strategies. It wasn't as thought provoking as Jiraiya's puzzles, but Naruto worked on those as well to prevent himself from getting lax.

"You still kicked my ass…" The psychic girl groaned as she quickly set up several supply lines to her main camp. Then again, she was also fighting against a demon lord, from what her comrade had told her. It was to be expected that he'd be better at directing armies than she would be. The Kyuubi hadn't gotten to be top dog on luck alone.

…Her interest was a demon lord.

Oh Kami, now she could never go to that counselor her mother had been wanting her to see for months. That would be a _very_ bad idea. Besides, being half-demon was kind of like a…character flaw. Yes, that was it. Everybody had to have a flaw that made them more human…uh, less human…whatever. She'd already known about the Kyuubi and accepted that, so this wasn't a _too_ huge of a change to get used to. Seriously, if she could have a crush on a pink-haired wimp with an overlarge forehead or a broody, cold-hearted brat riding a vengeance kick, what was wrong with seeing a hyperactive ramen fiend fused with a primordial demon lord as a potential comrade/friend/boyfriend?

Right?

…Ah hell, Shikamaru was right. Her head was a total piece of work that would give sane people nightmares to even peek inside (to be fair though, he had said that right after she'd finished verbally castrating him so the Nara genius wasn't being very objective at the time…)

For several minutes, the genins played their game in silence intermittently broken by Ino's outraged yells and Naruto's amused chuckles. When the blonde girl finally admitted defeat after five minutes, she pushed the scroll back at the other genin with a huff of disgust. It rolled itself up as it fell in his lap and the illusion disappeared in a few swirls of light.

"Uhg…Defeat again," Ino grumbled as she leaned back on her hands. She pouted for a moment, then asked the kitsune, "Are there any bad side-effects of absorbing the fox's…uh, your…whatever, _the_ memories?"

Naruto carefully tucked the scroll into his side pouch, then looked up to answer.

"You saw some of it when you were in my head. I can't sleep much, so I can't digest the knowledge properly and it overloads my brain. My brain is built to handle the stress for the most part, but while I won't go insane, I still get headaches and it makes me irritable overall," The half-demon replied. "When I deliberately search for memories, it screws up my chakra usage for a few hours. Not to mention when I come out of it, I'm nearly crippled by the pain in my head."

"You mean like a seizure or a stroke?" Ino asked, sudden worry spread across her face.

"No. At least, I don't think so. It wouldn't really matter if it was," Naruto answered with a dismissive shrug. "As long as it doesn't kill me instantly, I'll survive almost anything. I found out the hard way that I can heal brain and nerve damage as well as muscle and skin. It drains more chakra, but it can be done. No, the pain comes from the mental stress of maintaining the demon seal to safely search the Kyuubi's memories. Think of it like deep sea diving. There're so many memories that it puts a huge amount of pressure on my mind, so I have to apply equal pressure back to keep from crushed. The mind seal levels the playing field mostly, but it still strains my willpower horribly."

"So you're a deranged mess afterwards?" The psychic girl dryly asked.

"More like enfeebled with agony, but yeah I'm a total mess when I pull out of the memory reservoir. I avoid it usually, unless there's something specific I need that the fox might have known," The other genin calmly answered.

"Hmm…Interesting to know," Ino muttered to herself thoughtfully. Maybe when she practiced her Bloodline, he might be willing to…Well, something for another day.

"Hatake is pretty late today, isn't he?" Naruto said out of the blue. Ino glanced up at the sky, shaking her head to get her hair out of her eyes, and looked at the sun's position through the canopy. It was noon or very close to it.

"You're right, he is. That's odd. He's usually not late anymore and even at his worst he was never this bad," The pretty genin said as she looked back at the kitsune. "What do you think is keeping him?"

Naruto's face slowly grew a smirk so wicked it wouldn't be out of place on his demonic predecessor.

"I have _no_ idea, Ino-san. None whatsoever," He said in a monotone with an expression so innocent he _had_ to be guilty.

Ino stared at him for a minute, then suspiciously said, "This wouldn't have anything to do with those crows earlier, would it?"

"Of course not," Naruto replied, his wicked face saying otherwise.

"Exactly what did you two talk about the other day?" The other genin asked.

"Redistribution of available resources," The kitsune promptly answered. When Ino narrowed her eyes and focused on his thoughts, Naruto stuck his tongue out at her and said, "Too late! I'm not thinking about it anymore."

"Ass!" The psychic girl yelled and chucked a pinecone at his head.

"Relax, Ino-san, you'll find out eventually," Naruto calmly said. "Whenever Hatake gets around to-"

POOF!

"Yo!"

"See? There he is right now."

Ino blinked. What were the odds her sensei would show up right now as they were talking about him?

"You're late," The pretty genin calmly said to her teacher, who was comfortably crouched on a low branch of a nearby tree.

"Yeah, about that…It seems _someone_," Kakashi leveled a glare at Naruto, who returned it with a neutral look, "Summoned an enormous murder of crows, fed them a huge amount of rotten meat, and had them swarm over my house for four hours."

"Wait…If they just ate…Ewww," Ino said, catching on quickly and wrinkling her nose in disgust.

Kakashi nodded (though he didn't break off his glare at Naruto) and said, "There's a layer of bird poop covering my entire house and lawn. Nobody was able to get a hold of me in time and it hardened in the sun. So now there's a layer of _petrified_ bird poop covering my house and lawn. The stench is so horrible they can smell it up near the Hokage Tower. I had to beg Gai to take me in for a few days while some genin teams clean everything off."

"Well, sucks to be you," Naruto casually said, still not showing the slightest trace of guilt. He narrowed his eyes in return and said, "Speaking of Gai, did you come through on our deal or not?"

"Yes, actually. While you were arranging for a quarter ton of feces to be dumped on my home, I managed to barter Gai into transferring Lee onto Team 7. I was on my way to tell you the good news when I saw the huge swarm over my street," Kakashi said in an annoyed tone.

Naruto appeared to think it over for a moment, then shrugged sheepishly.

"Oops."

* * *

"Wow. Are you vengeful or what?" Ino said a couple hours later as she walked alongside Naruto. She shifted her backpack slightly and grumbled a little at the dust being kicked up from the road. 

"Comes with the title, 'Demon'," Kakashi dryly said. He was walking a few paces ahead of the two genins as they traveled towards northeastern Fire Country.

"Consider it a final act of retribution, Hatake-san," Naruto calmly replied. "You're smart enough to learn from past mistakes. I doubt I'll see the need or feel the urge to…_reprimand_ you again."

"That's what you're calling pranks these days?" Ino asked with a raised eyebrow.

Naruto only grinned at her in response. Focusing on Kakashi again, he asked, "When did you say Gai was going to let Lee join officially?"

"In couple of days or whenever we get back from this mission, whichever comes first," The copy-nin replied over his shoulder. "I don't think Lee is taking the separation very well."

"I doubt Gai is either, for that matter," Ino muttered. She _really_ wasn't sure of her opinion on Lee joining Team 7.

Pro: He had power out the ass. (Good sparring partner. Good backup on missions.)

Con: Youth power. (Enough said.)

"Well, it's not like they won't see each other anymore, considering they live together. And besides, Lee will still have personal training sessions with Gai every day we don't have team practice or aren't on a mission," Kakashi casually said.

"They live together? Why?" Ino asked curiously.

Her sensei didn't answer in words. He merely gave a look towards Naruto. The male genin caught on quickly enough

"Me. Lee was one of the children orphaned the day I attacked Konoha," The kitsune replied in a carefully neutral tone. "I'll bet he lived in an orphanage for awhile, then Gai probably took him in when he caught his eye."

"Yes, from what Gai told me that's how it happened," Kakashi said. He glanced back at Naruto and stared at him for a moment, then said, "I wouldn't feel too bad Naruto. Lee and Gai couldn't be happier living together, regardless of the dark circumstances that pushed them at each other."

"Yeah…" The half-demon quietly said. This wouldn't do. By his honor system, he owed Lee a massive debt and the Kyuubi always paid his debts, if nothing else (though not always in the way others felt…fair.) Fortunately he had some idea of how to repay it, to a certain degree. He doubted the weird boy would hesitate to accept his offer.

A thought occurred to him and he quickly asked, "Hey Hatake-san…Exactly what did you offer Gai that got him to accept?"

Kakashi grimaced as he answered, "For the next two years I have to train with him whenever he wants, I can't ignore him when he's raving about youth power, I have to 'duel' with him at least once a week, and I have to be his…fashion model whenever he goes to that crackpot tailor of his."

Both the genin's eyes bugged out of their skulls an instant before they exploded in laughter. The copy-nin was not amused at all and made his displeasure known by whirling around and whacking his subordinates on their heads. Even when squawking indignantly, both blondes took note of the embarrassed flush on their jounin's cheeks before he could turn around and hide it.

Things were quiet for a couple minutes, barring the exception of a couple sniggers from the genins. Growing bored with tormenting her sensei, Ino glanced over at her new teammate and asked, "Why did you demand Lee for our team anyways?"

"I have my personal reasons, but the one that makes the most sense is simple: he's the strongest of our crowd," Naruto answered, his eyes drifting over the lush green trees that lined the dirt road they were walking on.

"The strongest? But you almost kicked Hatake's ass! And I'm no pushover either," The psychic girl immediately exploded.

"You also forgot Neji. He's become quite powerful these last couple years," Kakashi commented, looking back at Naruto curiously.

"Neji will never exceed Lee," The kitsune answered in a calm, confident voice. At both of his teammate's surprised looks, he smiled a little and explained, "I don't have to be here to know that, you know. Lee was already far more powerful than Neji when I left Konoha and his drive to get stronger only grew after Sasuke's defection. He's probably low jounin level by now at the very least. I'd wager he could be a junior ANBU if he felt the urge and had the patience."

"But Neji seemed powerful in the exams," Ino said, slightly confused. "And Gaara crippled Lee pretty thoroughly."

"Neji beat the shit out of a wallflower and lost to the dead last. How is that impressive?" Naruto said in a sharp voice, though the other genin could sense his ire wasn't directed at her or Kakashi. "He can stab specific pressure points with his Bloodline and can make a brief shield of chakra. Whoopdey-freaking-doo. He wouldn't be able to land a single blow on Lee to make any use of his family tai-jutsu and Lee could bash right through the Kaiten once he started opening the Gates. And while Gaara may have crippled Lee, he would have _killed_ Neji. Be wary of falling for the glamour of a prodigy, my friend. They rarely live up to the image they project."

Ino stared at Naruto for a long moment, then laughed out loud.

"I had a very similar conversation with Hatake there a month or so ago," She said to answer the half-demon's confused expression. "You two are a lot alike in many ways."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Naruto and Kakashi said at the same time. They glanced at each other, gave identical shrugs, and casually walked on in similar relaxed strides.

Ino paused and stared at them with something akin to horror. She'd only been joking, really.

That was just creepy.

"Anyways, I guess you make a pretty good point," The pretty genin said, shaking off the weirdness. "And Lee, for all his oddity, is a lot easier to get along with than Neji."

"Very true," Both of her teammates said in stereo. They didn't even bother to look at each other this time. Ino forced herself not to shiver. She smiled a little as a more pleasant thought distracted her.

"So I'm your friend, huh?" The psychic genin said with a sly grin as she looked over at her new teammate.

Naruto gave her an appraising look followed by a strange little smile. He said in a light tone, "I suppose you are."

"You only suppose? You don't know for sure?" Ino asked with an amused smirk. The kitsune stuck his tongue out at her.

"Settle down children," Kakashi ordered. "We should pick up the pace. I want to get at least another twenty miles before we make camp."

"Where is this place again?" Ino asked as they sped up to bounding leaps down the road

"I'll give you guys the full run down," Her sensei replied. He took on the authoritative commander's tone that both genins knew well. "From the intelligence gathered, approximately twenty eight hours ago, a missing-nin force attacked one of our outlying farming villages that's close to the Sound border. We know what happened because one of the children managed to escape undetected and wandered into the path of one of our patrols. The girl was hysterical, as her entire family and most of the villagers were massacred right in front of her. It took awhile, but our nins were able to calm her down enough to get some info out of her. From what she saw, many of the ninjas had scratched headbands and at least two had forehead protectors inscribed with a musical note."

"Orochimaru," Naruto hissed. His eyes turned a malevolent red for several seconds.

"Yes, unless they're traitors and are stupid enough to try to carve their own country between the Leaf and the Sound," Kakashi replied, his eyebrow raising when he glanced back and saw the changes in his subordinate's irises. When they returned to normal, the Copy-ninja continued, "I don't think they're traitors though. Only a damn fool would openly oppose two powerful military nations like this. It's probably a strike under Orochimaru's orders. Most likely part of his psychological campaign against the Leaf."

"Bah. Only a weakling attacks civilians. A truly powerful individual would ignore them, unless it was a ploy to get to something else," Naruto growled back.

"True, but Orochimaru gets off on tormenting people in general and I hear he has a special hatred for the Leaf. It'd be just like him to order his goons to attack defenseless farmers just because he felt like it," Ino said, her eyes widening a little at the dark thoughts she was picking up from her teammate, mostly about what he'd ever do if he could get his hands on the Snake-sennin for more than five minutes.

Demon indeed.

"We have a plan?" Naruto asked as he forced his vengeful thoughts down.

"We'll be within five miles when we stop for the night. We'll rest up, then in the morning we'll scout them out and probably strike about noon," Kakashi answered. His exposed eye traced the passing trees in a deceptively casual manner.

"Any tactics you guys prefer that I should know about?" The kitsune curiously asked.

"Well, both of us can anticipate our opponent's moves in different ways and Ino-chan here can use some extremely powerful gen-jutsu to immobilize or confuse opponents. Usually she's my backup, breaking up numbers or delaying enemies to give me an advantage," The copy-nin replied after thinking it over for a second.

"So where do you want me, Hatake-san?" Naruto questioned.

Kakashi turned around in the middle of a jump and began keeping pace backwards while giving the genin one of his eye-smiles.

"So you're going to listen to my orders, huh?" The jounin lightly teased.

"I said you were an ass who played favorites," Naruto dryly replied and not even blinking at his commander's acrobatic display. "I never said you weren't a competent leader."

"I'm touched," Kakashi said, beaming like his head was a light bulb.

"Idiot," Ino and Naruto said at the same time. This time it was the copy-nin who blinked at the odd stereo effect.

"Anyways, tell me a bit about your new skills and abilities. I'll figure out a position to put you in from that," The jounin ordered. It was a good excuse to satisfy his curiosity about Naruto's arsenal, as well as serving a practical purpose.

"I've learned probably twenty or so new practical nin-jutsu while I was training with Ero-sennin. From the fusion, I've gained a couple tricks the fox had, as well as enhancing my healing to insane levels," The half-demon began, scrunching up his nose in thought. "I've also learned several archaic or otherwise unknown jutsu that are very handy. I've _finally _learned an actual tai-jutsu style. Let's see…I also know a hell of a lot about a variety of seals, including a set only five beings in existence know. That's pretty much it, as far as I can remember anyways."

"A tai-jutsu style, huh? Good, very good. That was a major weak point for you before you left," Kakashi muttered thoughtfully, scratching his masked chin while leaping backwards.

"Hatake-san, if you steal my fighting style, you and I will be enemies till one of use is dead," Naruto suddenly said in a dead serious voice.

"Wha-? Naruto I wouldn't, I swear! I won't betray your trust like that," Kakashi immediately protested, holding his hands up.

"It's not just that," The kitsune said, shaking his head. "The man who taught it to me made me swear on my eternal honor that I would never teach it to anyone and I would kill _anyone_ who managed to steal or copy even a portion of it. The only exception would be one of my children, if I ever have any. I'd be honor bound to either kill you, use some sort of memory jutsu to destroy the knowledge from your brain, or die trying either."

Both Kakashi and Ino stared at Naruto in shock. Not just that he was honor bound like that, but that he was taking it so seriously.

"But why is honor such a big deal to you, Naruto?" Ino asked after a moment.

"Not Naruto," The kitsune in question replied.

"The Kyuubi," Kakashi said, realization appearing in his eye. "Some of the old legends speak of the great demons. Some say that a lord will trick, con, and lie to any mortal they please, but if they truly give their word of honor they won't ever break it."

"Very close," Naruto answered, looking to his backwards jumping commander. "It's not a matter of won't, it's _can't_. If I swear on my honor as a Demon Lord, I cannot break my oath no matter how hard I try. The absolute best I can do is to bend it, as much as the wording will allow me to. I swore, word for word, that I would 'defend the secrets of the Impact Ruin Style with everything I have, up to my life if necessary.' I can bend the rules by, say, using a memory destroying jutsu or having Ino take it out of someone's head, but it's not an option of whether I can ignore it or not, even if it's accidental."

"I see," Kakashi said thoughtfully. He gave Naruto an eye-smile and a thumbs up with one hand. "Don't worry about it then, Naruto. I swear I won't deliberately steal it from you. If I do so by accident, then we can see if Ino-chan can remove it."

"Good," The kitsune said in obvious relief. "I really don't want to kill you. Or be killed by you."

"Same here," The jounin said with an amused smile under his mask. Turning a little serious, he said, "Okay, so you have a very unique setup for your skills and abilities. Unfortunately, I haven't seen most of them in live combat, so I don't really know where to put you. You're smart enough to know your own strengths. Where do you think you should go?"

Naruto frowned and let his eyes drift off to the sides of the road and the trees beyond while he thought. After several moments, he firmly answered, "The tank. Right in the middle, in the heaviest combat."

Kakashi's eye widened at the suggestion. He asked, "What's your logic? I know you're far more durable than most ninjas twice your age, but even with that and the clone defense you're just asking to get killed."

"Two major reasons," The half-demon said. He held up a finger and said, "One, like you said, I'm durable. I can take lots of punishment and heal up my injuries almost as fast our enemies can inflict them. Ino-san here can vouch for that."

"It's true," The psychic girl said when her sensei looked to her. "I nailed him with a Chidori right into his stomach. He healed all of the damage in less than half a minute."

"Impressive, but still…" Kakashi muttered, not wanting his comrade to get killed right after he got back. Or at any point in time, for that matter. He suddenly raised an eyebrow and looked sharply at Ino. "What do you mean you nailed him with a Chidori?"

"Uh…" The psychic girl intelligently replied, wearing an 'Oh shit' expression on her face. "Err…I mean, _Sasuke_ nailed him with a Chidori once and he healed up from it fine. It's stands to reason that his healing rate would have only increased since then."

"Uh huh," Her sensei sarcastically said, crossing his arms over her chest. He decided to let it go for now, but there would be words exchanged with his student later.

He would not create another Uchiha Sasuke.

"Trust me, Hatake-san," Naruto broke, trying to be serious while fighting the urge to laugh at Ino's expense. His distraction tactic worked and Kakashi turned his attention back to him as the kitsune continued, "I've been on many missions before and this is the role I play best. I'll live if I get run through the gut with a katana. You two won't. Without a medic-nin, our team can't risk major damage. It makes sense to have the guy who can soak lethal amounts of damage to be in the frontline so the attention is on him and not the people who lack freaky demonic regeneration."

"Alright, you have a point, but I'm still not convinced," The Copy-ninja grudgingly admitted. "What's your other reason?"

"Most of my jutsu and abilities are short to medium range. Ino can attack from a distance easily. I'm sure you have more ranged attacks then I do _and_ more experience using them. I won't be able to do as much from the back lines anyways, unless I mob the place with clones…which I can do from any position," The genin stated.

Kakashi frowned under his mask as he considered the kitsune's logic. It was pretty sound, all things considered. They would need someone to directly attack anyways and while the jounin himself usually filled that role, it would be smarter to use to ninja who could bounce back from huge damage as opposed to one who can't. Still, it wouldn't feel right. Not just sending a genin and a comrade into an almost certainly lethal position, but the copy-nin was used to fighting up front. It was his preferred position as well and he didn't like sitting on the sidelines if he could avoid it.

"Alright, you'll be up front, but I'll be right next to you," Kakashi said in a tone that broke no argument. "I'm an elite jounin for Kami's sake and that's my position of choice. Besides, most of my skills are short to mid range as well. I can attack from long range of course, but I'm most efficient up front."

"Are you sure we'll be able to fight well beside each other? We've never done it before," Naruto calmly pointed out. He wasn't protesting; it was just a good idea to point out potential flaws in a plan.

"We'll be fine. I have plenty of experience and you've always been adaptable, so I have no fear of us compensating during a fight," The jounin replied without hesitation.

Naruto nodded in agreement to his commander's assessment. A wicked grin grew on his face as he said, "Assuming we have anyone to fight once our enemies realize they're up against Copy-ninja Kakashi and the Kyuubi no Kitsune."

"We'll put the fear of Kami in them," The jounin replied with an amused tone.

"Or Tsunade-nee-chan. I'm not sure who I'd be more afraid of," The kitsune said in return.

Ino simply rolled her eyes and muttered, "Men."

"Ah, come on Ino-chan!"

"We're not that bad are we?"

"Yes," The psychic girl deadpanned. Kakashi grasped his chest and pretended to be struck by a mortal blow as Naruto started adding silly twirls and spins to his jumps.

"You wound me! My own student!"

"Join us, Ino-san. You know you want to, muhahahaha!"

"That's a nice diabolical laugh you have there, Naruto."

"Why thank you, Hatake-san. I do try my best."

"Would you be willing to share the secret to your success?"

"Well, being an evil spawn of Hell helps."

Ino barely resisted the urge to tear her hair out as her sensei and new teammate began to laugh maniacally together.

Idiots. Why was she always surrounded by idiots?

* * *

Ino got comfortable on her sleeping bag as she watched the small fire burn cheerfully. The sun had sunk past the horizon and the last traces of light were disappearing from the sky. Little pinpricks of light could be seen over the dark and shadowy forms of the large pine trees they were camped under. The firelight reflected off the dry pine needles that spread across the ground like a prickly carpet. The psychic girl was idly playing with one of the brown needles as she watched Kakashi and Naruto set up their sleeping mats. By circumstance or design, they'd each set up their spots to bed down for the night in a near perfect triangle around the fire, with roughly the same distance between them. 

Well, ninjas can be excused for their paranoia.

"So is there anything else we need to know about this mission?" Naruto asked Kakashi.

"Just that we anticipate heavy resistance. There wasn't any hint of the normal cannon fodder the Sound uses, so these will be fully trained shinobi. Many chuunins and I'll bet my money on at least two or three jounins to keep them in line," The copy-nin answered as he sat down on his bag.

"What's the rank?" Ino spoke up with an eager tone.

"Still A Rank, Ino-chan," Kakashi replied, his eye twinkling in amusement. He laughed when the genin let out an unladylike curse. At Naruto's confused look, he explained, "Ever since she tangled with you a month ago, she's been itching to get at least one S Rank mission to her name. I think you've created a monster, Naruto."

Ino blushed a little and muttered, "Oh, shut up Hatake…"

"Ino-san, be grateful you haven't had to deal with one yet," Naruto said in a serious tone. Seeing that he had the girl's attention, he continued, "S Ranks are monsters and that's likely what you'd be fighting. You've already heard of Orochimaru, but have you heard of Akatsuki? Both the snake-freak and most of the cloak-freaks are S Rank missing-nins. Believe me, not all of them will fall prey to your Bloodline. You need more experience and a hell of a lot more training before you even _accompany_ a team on an S Rank."

Ino grimaced at the implication that she was still weak, missing the kitsune's point. Looking over at Naruto, she said, "But you said yourself that you've done eleven so far."

"I was working with a team, Ino-san, and a very good one at that. I'm also not a normal human being. Despite your Bloodline Limit, you are," The half-demon calmly answered. "Even I wouldn't take an S Rank by myself and even for most A Ranks I'd request backup. Hell, if Nee-chan ever gave me one I'd probably go through the entire Rookie 9 and their jounin senseis asking for someone to come with me before I set out by myself. Even jounins can be hell to take down and an S Rank missing-nin is simply a nightmare to fight."

The psychic girl's face fell. She rested her chin on her knees and stared into the fire quietly.

Sensing the reason for his comrade's silence, Naruto spoke up again, "I'm not saying you're weak, Ino-san. I'm saying you're just not ready yet. But you will be strong enough some day and it's better to grow patiently than getting killed because you mistakenly got in over your head. I know Hatake-san and I both wouldn't want that to happen."

"He's right, Ino-chan," Kakashi quietly said. "My sensei didn't let me take my first S Rank mission until I was a jounin for two years. Thank the Kami Arashi-sensei knew my limits better than I did. I still almost got killed the first time I went up against an S Rank missing-nin. Had I gone on a mission of that level any sooner, I would've definitely died."

"And you were what, almost seventeen or so?" Naruto asked the jounin.

"Almost eighteen, actually," The Copy-ninja replied. To his student, he said, "See? I've been hailed as a genius for my whole life and even I didn't take one until I was three years older than you."

"Our point is, don't try to go too far too fast," The kitsune added. "There's no shame in waiting until you're strong enough to meet a challenge. There'll always be powerful assholes in the world, Ino-san. You'll get you're chance to kill as many as you want soon enough. You'll probably get your fill of them pretty quickly too."

"Kami knows I have," Kakashi grumbled. "There's nothing quite like the stress of constantly fighting people who can kill you in half a second to wear on your nerves. What I'd give for a chance to take a vacation for awhile. A month or two in one of the southern islands would be wonderful."

"Not likely to happen while Orochimaru is alive," Naruto growled. The Sannin's name left his mouth in a dark hiss. He shook off his dark mood and perked up a bit. "Hey, that'd be a great idea! As soon as the war is over and everything settles down some, Team 7 should get some time off to go to the southern lands. We could swing by Wave Country on the way and say hi to Tanzuna-san and Tsunami-chan."

"Sorry, Uzumaki, but political ties with Wave Country are pretty bad right now. And I heard the southern islands are limiting all access to shinobi from now on," Ino finally spoke up. A little bit of spark came back to her eyes as she told her teammate about the political news.

"Shit…Well, screw the southern islands," Naruto declared. He grinned and said, "I got a better place to go to anyways. And they don't give a rat's ass who comes and goes through their village."

"Where?" Kakashi asked, curious about what the heck the genin was talking about.

"Let's just say there's no better place in the world for a good night's sleep," The kitsune replied with a bit of a fox-grin. "I'm not gonna say anymore and ruin the surprise."

"Uh…Okay," The jounin said. Who knew where the damn brat had gotten off to while he'd been gone. "Anyways, we better get some sleep. It'll be a huge fight in the morning. Who wants first watch?"

"One of you two. I'm going go do some scouting," Naruto said as he looked up through the branches and saw that every trace of the sun was gone.

"Naruto, stealth has never been your forte and I don't want our cover blown just yet. It'd be better-" Kakashi was interrupted when the kitsune held a placating hand up.

"Relax, Hatake-san," He said as he walked to the edge of the small camp. He gave the copy-nin a confident grin and said, "They won't see, hear, or even smell me."

Kakashi frowned under his mask, not liking what the genin was about to do. His instincts, though, said to trust the other shinobi's skill. And they _did_ need some fresh surveillance by a professional ninja rather than the day old, panicked descriptions of a small child.

"Alright, but don't take any hostile action. I want them as unprepared tomorrow as they're going to get. Scout them out, then get back here," The Copy-ninja ordered.

Naruto grinned at the reply, then said, "I'll be back in a few hours."

With that, he was gone like he'd melted into the shadows.

"Doesn't take no for an answer, does he?" Ino dryly asked, shifting on her sleeping bag to look at her teacher.

"You have absolutely no idea, Ino-chan. None at all," Kakashi replied in a weary tone. He glanced up and said, "I'll take the first watch. I won't rest well until he's back anyways. You get some rest and take over for us both when he gets back."

Used to switching off in the middle of the night from all the out of country missions they'd been on in the last year, Ino didn't argue and stretched out on top of her bag. In minutes she was asleep and Kakashi was alone with his thoughts, staring into the fire.

It wasn't a very smart thing to do. Staring into the fire, that is. His vision was already naturally limited by only being able to use one eye, so frying it by staring into bright, cheery flames would serve no purpose other than effectively blinding him. If someone snuck up on him, he wouldn't be able to see them in the darkness. He should be facing away from the fire or sitting up in a tree or any number of things, but he found that he really didn't feel like it right now.

When Naruto had taken him aside earlier that day and said that he'd earned enough trust in his eyes to reveal a secret about him and the Kyuubi, Kakashi hadn't reacted.

Then the teen had spoken. And spoken.

And spoken some more.

The Kyuubi had become Naruto. Naruto had become the Kyuubi. Their salvation and their oppressor had become one and the same. The Fourth's Legacy had become Konoha's Bane.

Naruto had become his sensei's murderer.

The kitsune had understood Kakashi's utter shock and said as much. It was to be expected, he continued to say. So far everyone he'd told had been wonderfully accepting, even Iruka. The mention of the chuunin had snapped the jounin out of his inner thoughts and he'd shrugged it off with one of his cool phrases.

Naruto hadn't bought it in the least.

Of course he hadn't. He wasn't _just_ Naruto anymore. This wasn't a brash, wild fifteen year old he was dealing with anymore. His subordinate (he couldn't be considered the kitsune's teacher from any stretch of the imagination) was also an eon old demonic force that at one time had been hell bent on killing every human in Konoha. A very smart, eon old demonic force.

Naruto had seen the discomfort his revelation had brought upon his former teacher and had graciously backed off, saying that he'd let the jounin come to terms with it on his own.

Kakashi was both grateful and irate at the move. It was thoughtful of Naruto to offer such a gesture, but the copy-nin had a bad history of dealing with things on his own. Still, the kitsune had been right about one thing: Kakashi couldn't talk to him about it. The topic had to end for the time being. That left the jounin with one viable option.

Ino.

Of course, trying to find a good time to talk to her today had been damn near impossible with their mission and new schedule. Kakashi had managed to get her alone for about fifteen minutes when they'd all split up to grab their gear from their respective homes before meeting up again. The copy-nin had cornered his student and asked if she knew the truth about Naruto and the Kyuubi. When she'd affirmed it, he'd asked her how she was handling it.

She'd surprised him by laughing out loud and saying it didn't bother her much. If any human on the planet was stubborn enough to match and level out a demon's personality, it was Uzumaki "I-Make-Mules-Look-Compromising-By-Comparison" Naruto.

In other words, she wasn't worried about it.

Kakashi wasn't honestly worried either, seeing as how the kitsune had a hundred opportunities to try and kill him throughout the course of the day. And his overall aura wasn't malevolent, except whenever Orochimaru or the Akatsuki came up in conversation. No, it wasn't safety that was bothering him; it was how he should feel about the situation. This was both his friend and the murderer of the Fourth (as well as a third of Konoha's military at the time.) Was it fair that the boy he liked and respected should feel the resentment of the demon?

If Kakashi held this fusion against him, was he any better than the cowardly villagers that had made an innocent child's life hell from the time he could walk?

He didn't know. He wasn't sure how to feel about this. It was easy to accept Naruto when he was just the prison. Now that he'd become the inmate, how was he to react?

Kakashi tossed a small log on the fire and leaned back against the tree he'd set his bedroll under. He quietly stared at the stars between the branches as he tried very hard not to think. He didn't want to think about this situation. He didn't want the memories it brought up. Memories of a blonde haired man with a kind smile. A man who'd become something like a second father to the jounin, especially after his own father committed suicide.

A man he'd failed.

He'd failed to gain his respect as an equal, he'd failed to save him when the Kyuubi attacked, and most of all, he'd failed to die alongside him.

Kakashi tried very hard not to think.

A warm hand on his shoulder nearly made the jounin jump out of his skin. As it was, he was halfway to a kunai before he realized who was leaning over him.

"You alright, Hatake-san?" Naruto quietly asked. Out of the corner of his eye, Kakashi noted that Ino was still sleeping soundly. The fire had burned down into glowing embers.

How long had he been out for?

"I was gone almost three hours. Considering how low the fire is, I'd say you fell asleep just after I left," The kitsune said as he leaned back and move to rekindle the fire.

"…I see," Kakashi slowly responded. He wasn't aware he'd asked that out loud. For that matter, he wasn't aware he'd fallen asleep. He must've been trying not to think a bit too hard. He shook himself awake and got up to move next to the reignited fire. "What did you find out?"

Kakashi only half listened to Naruto's report, instead focusing more on the kitsune's aura and his mannerisms. As an Elite Jounin, the Copy-ninja was always aware of his surroundings, even when he slept. Had it been an enemy nin who'd gotten so close to him, he would have sensed the malevolent intentions with ease.

Naruto hadn't been the slightest bit hostile.

In fact, watching the kitsune making hand gestures and simple drawings in a patch of cleared earth, Kakashi realized that despite the verbal castration he'd been on the receiving end of a few days ago, the half-demon wasn't the least bit angry with him. While he was a far cry from the warm and friendly attitude he used to have, Naruto wasn't displaying any bad feelings towards him either. He was distant and respectful, as though he trusted him as a commander, but not as a friend just yet.

This wasn't the attitude of a mass murdering demon.

Oh, the Kyuubi was there alright. Kakashi could tell just from the larger words, the greater patience, and the sharper mind set that there was definitely a foreign side to Naruto's personality that could only be the demon. But it didn't have control. It seemed a fairly equal mixture of the two minds, though Naruto's seemed more dominant. Likely as not, the Kyuubi side would be dominant during a stressful situation, like combat or when the half-demon was exceptionally pissed off. But whether or not the demon was in power, one thing was certain to the jounin.

It didn't want him dead. In fact, it seemed very much to want him alive and well.

Perhaps it was Naruto reorganizing the fox's priorities. Perhaps the Kyuubi had grown to like Kakashi, for some unknown reason. Or maybe the demon wanted redemption, as laughable as that sounded. But the point is that though this creature was the same one that had murdered his sensei, it was now his ally come hell or high water.

"Hatake-san? Is something wrong?" Naruto asked, curiously looking up from a rough sketch of the village he'd drawn in the dirt. It was subtle, but there was a definite hint of concern in his eyes as he watched his commander.

And somehow, Kakashi didn't worry about it at all anymore.

* * *

Dawn saw the sky slowly graying over a spread out farming community. Sleepy wisps of fog hung in the air in the low areas of the village, having not yet been burned away by the sun. The buildings were dark and quiet. Not even their weather beaten, gray planks made a single groan. Normally there would be at least a few people out and about, even if it was just an early rising farmer going out to feed the chickens or something. 

Not this village.

It was still as death and though it was peaceful, the wind stunk of it. Something had died recently. Make that a _lot _of somethings. The very air held an ominous odor of rotting meat. It made the tranquil silence of this small village chilling. At least, that's how it seemed to its observers.

Resting in a tree just on the outskirts of the community were three shadowy figures. They silently watched the village for several minutes, trying to spot their targets.

"From what I saw, the leader and the central bunch of this group have taken up residence in the community hall," Naruto muttered in a low voice as he leaned down from his perch towards his commander.

"What villages are they from?" Kakashi whispered back, his eye never leaving the silent buildings.

"Have no clue for most of them. The leader is a Sound-nin, I know that much. At least four others are Sound as well. I saw two Rain-nins and one Stone-nin. Don't know about the rest. They're ninja, but they're not wearing head bands," The kitsune replied.

"How many?" The jounin asked. His eye twitched slightly as he finally saw a shinobi leave one of the large farmhouses.

"Twenty, give or take two. I'm guessing twenty-one. Five four-man teams and the leader," Naruto answered quietly.

"Ino?" Kakashi asked, his eye tracking the slowly moving ninja as he walked into the center of the community.

"Hang on…" The psychic girl replied. Her eyes glowed teal as she concentrated on the minds spread across the village. After a few seconds, she answered, "Twenty-four living people are in the village. At least 16 are ninja and two are definitely civilian. I can't get a reading on the others. They may be asleep or unconscious."

"I see. So this is going to be a rescue mission as well. That makes it a bit tricky," The Copy-ninja muttered.

The village's layout was pretty simple. The main street was a large dirt road that ran right through the community from east to west. On the north was the community hall and two medium sized buildings that lacked enough unique characteristics to identify their purposes. Beyond that were open crop fields that stretched off into the distance, with occasional clusters of trees and farmhouses breaking up the landscape. On the south side of the road was a large barn that had several crop machines inside. There was also a small trading post that was the closest building to the Leaf-nins' position.

The rotting smell seemed to be coming from the barn.

At the western edge of the community (which was the far side from their hiding spot) was a large, still windmill. It was impressively tall and Kakashi imagined that the farmers took in a great deal of grain to need a mill that large. The mill was probably a thousand feet from them, making this central part of the community about thirteen hundred feet long. Closer towards them, in roughly the center of the village, was a large well. This was the destination of the missing-nin the jounin was tracking.

The man drew up some water and took a long draught from the bucket. He let it drop back in the well with a messy splash, then turned to wander down the road in the direction of the Leaf-nins.

"Well, they didn't poison the water," Ino muttered as she watched the missing-nin slowly approach. He had dark blue hair and the faintest limp in his right leg. He seemed powerful and skilled despite the poorly healed injury. The female genin admitted that he would probably be handsome, were it not for the smug look on his face as his eyes roamed confidently across the subdued village.

"Means they probably used force on the civilians. Filth," Naruto growled in a low tone.

"Well, few missing-nins retain their honor, Naruto. There are some rare and notable exceptions, but most missing-nins leave their villages for breaking some serious laws, like murder or total abuse of power. I doubt there are any pleasant ones on this continent," Kakashi calmly replied. He watched the man on the ground get within two hundred feet of their position. He'd seen enough of the situation. They'd move in now, while the criminals were unprepared.

The jounin turned to Naruto and nodded at the missing-nin.

"Take him out. Quietly."

Naruto didn't answer in words. Instead, he focused his chakra and subtly shifted the flowing energy through the air. He didn't break his eyes away from the man once as he performed his jutsu.

A muffled, near silent pop was the only sound as a kage bunshin appeared behind the shinobi. It instantly reached up and clamped one hand across the nin's mouth and the other on his throat. The ninja choked and tried to make a sound, then struggled in the unyielding grasp. He wasn't able to break free before four arms burst up through the ground and grabbed onto their legs, all with surprisingly little sound. One pair held the missing-nin and the other grabbed its fellow clone.

With barely a rustle, both clone and criminal disappeared into the earth with only a small collapsing depression to mark their passage.

Naruto had a strange glazed look in his eyes, as though he was seeing something no one else could. After a few seconds he announced, "Got him. Broken neck."

"Nice," Ino whispered, slightly awed. Except for the funny mark in the road there wasn't a trace of the nin.

"No kidding," Kakashi replied. He gave a glance at his subordinate and said, "Impressive, Naruto. I can't wait to see what else you've learned."

"Considering there are nineteen left, you'll get your chance," The kitsune quietly replied. He glanced at the community hall and muttered, "They'll notice he's gone pretty soon."

"…We're in over our heads, aren't we?" Ino said as her teammates shifted into high crouching positions, ready to move forward.

"If we take them head on, then yeah, we are. It'll come to that eventually, but we're going to pick off as many as we can using stealth first. Hopefully, between the silent kills and the early hour they'll be off guard and at a disadvantage when they finally realize we're here," Kakashi answered, eyeing the still silent village.

On either side of him, both Naruto and Ino tensed on their respective branches.

"Naruto, check along the southern edge of town. I want to know what that smell is. Take out any nins you find in both buildings, then meet me next to that building closest to the community hall," Kakashi ordered, gesturing to one of the unidentifiable structures on the north side of the street. He glanced to Ino and said, "Ino-chan, go across the roofs of those two buildings on the north side and see if you can pick up anybody in them. If they're a ninja, signal me and I'll take them out. Then I want you to get close to the hall and take an accurate count of everyone inside, shinobi and civilian. Meet back with Naruto and me when you're done.

"Both of you, if you see an opportunity take it. You're both capable, so I'll trust your judgment. And don't trust a hostage. Henge is too common a jutsu for us to risk assumptions. Knock them out or use kai on them, preferably both. As long as they're out of the way of fighting, they should be safe. When we meet up, we'll take the hall by surprise. Kill anything with a forehead protector first, then deal with the others second. You both have that?" Kakashi finished, glancing back and forth between his charges.

At the affirmative nods, he stood up straight and said in a low, commanding voice, "Team 7…go."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**General:** It's out, yippee. Uh, anyways. Not a hell of a lot I need to say for this chapter.

Ah, the council man. He's the guy that tried to get Jiraiya to become the Godaime, immediately after the Sound-Sand invasion. Google search is such a handy tool when looking up minor characters, haha. I also saw on one site that he was the Third's teammate. It should be accurate, but I don't particularly care if it isn't. As for why I threw him in, eh…I liked his glasses.

As for the Kakashi bashing, I was annoyed with what his character did in regards to Lee, Naruto, and Sasuke, but most other fics I've read is either, "Kakashi's so cool and dreamy!" or "He likes Sasuke more than Naruto. Kill!" I think the extreme attitudes are rather silly, so I decided to bash him logically, then move on. I respect Kakashi's character, but I lost a lot over the stunts he pulled in the chuunin exams. He'll act with honor in this story, unlike certain parts of the manga, that I promise.

I noticed some people are in the habit of leaving _very_ short reviews. While I don't mind short reviews at all, some of these are only 1 to 3 words long, which I think is kind of ridiculous. I won't badger anybody about this, but I'd really appreciate it if the reviews at least a couple sentences long. Just a couple lines would be great.

An announcement for the next chapter: I will be disappearing into the wild west for a month starting in the middle of July somewhere. I'll do my damnedest to get chapter 10 up before then, but unfortunately that's a month I'll be out of commission as an author and probably a few weeks on the other side as I write Chap. 11. This will actually be a good opportunity for me to thoroughly reorganize my notes for the full plot of Foxhound and to bounce some ideas off a friend of mine who I'll be meeting up with (when I went out there a year ago, he was the one who introduced me to Naruto.). I won't have access to a computer for the most part, but I will be able to check email and update my lj every now and then. Just to let you guys know that I'm still alive and well, I'm just gone for a little while.

**Jutsu**: Not much this time around. Next chapter though should have several more.

**Tegami Bakudan** (Letter Bomb) (C to B Rank) Non-elemental (mostly concussive force) booby trap jutsu used to protect sensitive letters. Nin-jutsu. Five seals.

This is a rather nasty jutsu to be on the receiving end of. It modifies and encases a document that's keyed to a recipient during the seal work. After the document is sealed, only the recipient can open it safely (not even the creator can reopen it.) If anyone other than the receiver tries to open or tamper with the document, it explodes with a force similar to a very small fusion explosion (approximately twenty feet in diameter.) It costs a moderate hunk of chakra to use (by normal standards), but is roughly equal in power to 1.5 (C Rank) or 3.5 (B Rank) exploding tags. Not many people would survive such an explosion at close range (or have the reflexes to get away from it.) Needless to say, confidential information protected by the Tegami Bakudan is **Safe **(capitol S; bold font) from an enemy. The document is completely destroyed if the jutsu is triggered, no ifs or buts.

This jutsu was dug up from the Kyuubi's memories after the Hyougakage asked Naruto to come up with a way to protect their messages. Maruishi is quite _satisfied_ with the results. The demon's memories weren't clear as to the origin of this jutsu, unfortunately.

(Note: I considered naming this jutsu Post Office Hell.)

**Naruto's Tai-jutsu**: Will be displayed and explained in the next chapter. (It'll be bad-ass.)

**Reviews:** I'm gonna keep this brief this time around. In fact, to get a more accurate word count, I'll be going back and removing review responses form previous chapters. I'll leave these up for a couple weeks, then I'll take them down. Not much point in keeping them after a certain amount of time has passed.

**Strategemini**: Five Cardinal Lords, you got it. Kyuubi is the Eastern Lord, Coyote is the Western Lord, and the others have yet to be named (but I will give a full bio for each when the time comes for them in this story.) And while it's the Northern Lord hidden in the Night, it's _not_ Fenris.

**Manatheron**: I'm cutting the demon seal use down for now as I'll need to use several of them later and I don't want to burn the plot device out. Besides, normal seals can do some pretty powerful stuff too.

**Blackmamuth**: Kakashi's hand seals will be explained in the next chapter.

**Drahylin**: Not long at all. It's Terror Effect, btw.Ino will have a _very_ powerful gen-jutsu later that'll make its victims want to curl up and die. Can't spoil it all though, sorry, haha.

**DarkJackel**: You've hit a few plot ideas I've been toying with. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

**DarkGaara**: It took me 30 minutes total to design the house once I sat down and organized it. I drew a simple blueprint on MS Paint to organize it and went from there.

**cb urk**: That's a possibility.

**kurai-kodoku**: Well, even Demon Lord's need their 'thrones', right?

**SilentOmega**: That's with his human and demon chakra added together. I'll do my best not to screw her character up.

**PersonaJXT**: A fair point. I went back to my scans and noticed that Jiraiya did have three genins. Yondaime was the only one worth mentioning though. His body density is higher than normal, but not Kryptonian or anything. He's tougher than normal, but not to an unnatural level.

**dbzneon**: Shizune wasn't there because it was tricky enough to write four people. She would have been shoved into the background. I don't really like Kiba that much and I find his character hard to write without bashing him. Since I want to be fair, I've avoided adding him until I've gotten a bit better. The NaruIno will pick up when I feel like it. I warned everyone that I was going to take my time and build up to it, didn't I?

**randomreader**: You've said the magic word: bad-ass! I love that word.

**Vermillion Wolf**: That's alright. Episode 3 killed my ninja mood for a week and put me into Jedi mode. I haven't quite gotten out of it yet. NaruIno interaction: granted. Glad you liked this chapter.

**Altariel Eldalote**: Ino was shocked because she felt that second side of Naruto's mind come into play while he was fighting Kakashi. To her, it feels likes somewhat nailed her head to toe in artic water when she psychically contacts it. Ah sleep deprivation…Go tooo sleeeeeeeep….gooo tooo sleeeeeeeeeep…

**Serina L337 Mistress**: Sorry, as much as I enjoy people groveling before me, the story comes when it comes. Sometimes I feel like writing; sometimes I don't. Glad you like it so much that you'll stay up late to read it.

**KayLue**: I haven't made or heard of anyone making fanart for Foxhound yet. One reviewer said they'd make one and I'm curious as to how it will turn out. If I could, I'd make dozens of drawings of the stuff in Foxhound and post them on mediaminer or something, but sadly my talents lie more in authoring as opposed to drawing.

**The-Rogue-Otaku**: Man, if I had a Wind Cushion of my own I'd never get out of bed. Glad you think I could go professional. I'm going to be working on that this next fall, so hopefully my chapter quality will improve (maybe…perhaps…hopefully.)

**Aiel**: Thanks for the feedback and the email you sent me. It was fun debating with you.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I love to read the feedback!

**Preview (ish):** Since I've stopped giving release dates, I'll give a bit of info on what to expect in the next chapter:

Fighting and lots of it. This'll be the first example of why I gave this story an R/M rating. Lot's of gore!

Lee joins the team! Exactly why Naruto thinks this is a good thing, Ino and Kakashi don't know!

And Kakashi's hand seals finally explained (five chapters/100,000 words later!)

See that and more (filler) in Chap. 10!


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